Pork Tenderloin

[CanuckJim]

Everybody,

Baked, literally, a ton of bread last week for a local restaurant. Sold out. Whew! Anyway, a few days later the oven was still hovering at 200 F on the hearth. Coincidentally, a local market had a sale on pork tenderloin that I couldn't ignore. Bought four, got out the big cast iron pot, seared the meat, added pork stock that had been used previously for two braised roasts, put in carrots, onion, celery, mushrooms, half a red pepper, bay, garlic and the butt end of a small ham. Covered said pot with its heavy lid and slid it directly onto the brick. Next day the meat was about as good as it gets. Can't figure out which is better, sliced porkloin on olive bread or the stock.

Story goes that chefs in Provence have been recycling stock like this for up to forty years. If so, must be devastating.

Jim

[Richard]

what was in your pork stock? was this simply the liquid, with aromatics, that you had cooked the roasts in, or a stock made in the fashion of a beef or chicken stock?

[CanuckJim]

Richard,

For the very first pork roast, I used chicken stock. After that, I simply used the stock itself, plus aromatics. If it seemed to have boiled off too much, I'd add more chicken stock. Bones (browned) would be a good idea, too. You really end up with a very fine stock. In France, they sometimes render stock like this until it's almost a paste, then freeze in ice cube trays. One cube added to a soup is a knockout.

Jim