by Marlene Parrish
Pittsburgh Post-GazetteIt's dinnertime, and you need some help. Coming up with a quick entree that serves two or three can be a challenge night after night!
We have kitchen-tested 10 speedy recipes for you. They all star pork tenderloin, a superb solution to the challenge of preparing fast weeknight meals.
If you are not familiar with it, here's the skinny on pork tenderloin. It's a boneless, tender meat that's lean, cooks quickly, is delicate in flavor and adapts well to a variety of seasonings and cooking methods. It's also surprisingly light, versatile and convenient. And it really does fit into almost every diet, including that of health-conscious people. It's a nutrient-dense food that supplies lots of protein, B vitamins and iron.
The small, slender, tapered tenderloin is the choice muscle that comes from boning an entire pork loin. Each weighs 1/2 to 1 pound, and a small one will make two servings, a large one three or four. They're ideal for the smaller household, or when you want only a small portion of meat in a dish.
Tenderloins are sold singly or in pairs, fresh or sealed airtight in plastic. Many supermarkets carry tenderloins prepackaged in marinade, ready for the grill or skillet. It's a good idea to keep a pack of tenderloins in the freezer. After you cook a pork tenderloin once, you'll want to do it again.
Left whole, tenderloins can be rubbed with herbs and seasonings and roasted or grilled as a mini-roast. Slice them and pound into medallions to be sauteed. Cut into strips, the meat can be added to vegetables in a stir-fry. Whole, smoked tenderloins are a cinch in a pinch, and they're delicious, too.
The meat can stand in for almost any dish that calls for veal or chicken. And leftovers are great in sandwiches, or diced and made into "chicken salad."
Versatile? Yes, although some folks have a lingering perception that pork isn't good for you, that's it's too fatty, and that it has no place in a healthful eating regimen. But pork, along with the times, has changed. Surely you've noticed.
For generations, pork was perceived as a food that was high in fat, calories and cholesterol--generally not a good nutrition value. However, in the '50s and '60s, pork producers worried that beef was hogging the market, so to speak. They began a program to breed a better pig. The goal was to take much of the fat out of pork through improved genetics and diet.
The effort was successful. Pork now has 31 percent less fat than its pudgy predecessor of the early 1980s. It also has 14 percent fewer calories and 10 percent less cholesterol. That's the good news.
The bad news is that unless you learn the speedier techniques of cooking today's lean pork, you can end up with dry and tasteless meat.
Avoid overcooking. For tenderness, juiciness and flavor, think pink. That's what results when pork is cooked to the currently recommended 155 to 160 degrees.
Sauteed medallions are done when barely pink in the center; paper-thin scallopini cook almost as fast as you can turn them in the pan. Remember that they'll continue to cook after you remove them from the pan.
Not everyone is ready to accept pork with a hint of pink. "That isn't what my mother's cookbook says," and "That's not the way my sainted mother cooked it," are, excuse me, outdated responses.
If that would be you, please hear two important things.
First, the instructions for long cooking and high internal temperatures that you'll find in older cookbooks because of the threat of trichinosis, a health risk as likely as catching whooping cough, are obsolete. An old-favorite pork recipe, written even two decades ago, has a good chance of producing a dried-out disaster.
And second, just because your mother cooked pork to death doesn't make it right for today's meat. She also scrubbed clothes on a board, hung out the wash on a clothesline and ironed starched shirts. We've made some progress since then.
Here, then, 10 ways to get dinner on the table.
Recipes:
Pork Tenderloin with Hoisin and Sesame Seeds
Pork Pocket Sandwiches
Pork Scallopini
Southwestern Grilled Pork Tenderloin
Smoky Citrus Pork Kebabs
Clove and Pepper-Cured Roast Pork Tenderloin
Pork Tenderloin Crusted With Mustard Seed
Pork Tenderloin Diane
Peanutty Pork Fingers
Pork Tenderloin Parmesan
