Grilled Pork Tenderloin al Pastor with Avocado Crema

While working on a hobby project in the basement earlier today (a different post for my main blog), I was watching the Food Network (The Kitchen), and saw a recipe that made me say "that's dinner for tonight."

The recipe was Grilled Pork Tenderloin al Pastor with an avocado crema. Yum. Thanks to Jeff Mauro.

This is a simple recipe (the best kind), with a minimum of ingredients and not a ton of prep work.

The pork tenderloins were marinaded for 2-3 hours in a blender-ed combination of pineapple juice, chipotle chilis in adobo sauce, garlic, salt and achiote paste. As a short cut to the true achiote paste, I used two packets of Goya brand achiote seasoning powder (and the result was terrific).

The avocado crema was blender-ed combination of 1.5 avocados, part of a bunch of cilantro, a half cup or so of sour cream, some salt and pepper, a lime's zest and juice, plus a little water and olive oil to thin it down.

Grilled Pork Tenderloin al Pastor with Avocado Crema

The result was fabulous. I cooked the tenderloins (3 of them) on a 350-ish degree grill for 10 minutes on each side. They rested for ten minutes while we steamed some broccoli.

We served it, as is often the case in our semi-Asian family, with white rice (and a glass of Chardonnay...).

Highly recommended. Complex rich flavors with minimal prep and not too many ingredients. If you can't find achiote powder or paste, you could use salt, pepper and garlic powder and you'd be OK...

Try this, you won't regret it.

Spicy Mint Beef

Dinner tonight was a new recipe; Spicy Mint Beef, a Thai recipe from the May 2013 issue of Food Network Magazine.

This was basically a stir fry. Prep was minimal, and the ingredient list was short, many of which were pantry ingredients.

Prepped ingredients

Step 1 - A sliced jalapeno and some garlic go into a pan over high heat (high heat throughout). The recipe called for a few Thai or serrano chilis, but this might make it too spicy for Julia, and definitely too spicy for Grace.

Step 1 - oil, chili and garlic

Step 2 - After a minute or so, sliced flank steak goes into the pan, followed a couple minutes later by a sliced bell pepper and 3 sliced shallots.

Step 2 - beef, peppers and shallots

Step 3 - After another minute or so, a sauce goes in. The sauce is a combination of dark soy, sweet soy, fish sauce (fermented fishy goodness!) and chili garlic paste.

Step 3 - soy, fish sauce and chili garlic paste

Step 4 - After 3 minutes of simmering the beef and veggies in the sauce, you take the dish off the heat and add a handful of mint leaves and a handful of chopped basil. Give it a couple of minutes to wilt, and you are done.

Step 4 - mint leaves and chopped basil

The end result, served with white rice. And a glass of Chardonnay...

Spicy Mint Beef

This meal gets very high marks for flavor, limited list of ingredients, minimal prep, minimal clean up, and good authentic ethnic taste. The downside is...I can't think of one. This was easy, cheap and delicious. I'm not sure what more I could ask for...

Ribs (again)

Nothing says "I have 5 hours this afternoon on a vacation day at the end of a holiday weekend with nothing particular to do" like 3 full racks of baby back ribs.

I have written about my rib rub recipe before (May 2013), so nothing here was extraordinarily new other than the store bought sauce used to finish off this batch of ribs. Normally I use Sweet Baby Ray's (original recipe), which has a nice sweetness to offset the spiciness of the dry rub. Wandering the market today I noticed a series of Guy Fieri branded sauces, and since Grace is a fan of Diners Drive Ins and Dives, I picked up a bottle of his "Kansas City - smoky and sweet" version. Getting this home and comparing it side by side to SBR's, it was extremely similar in texture and taste. Which meant it was good.

Ribs - final 10 minutes sauced with bone side down

The ribs themselves were cooked in the oven, tented with foil, for 3 hours and 45 minutes at 250 degrees [F] (a long slow cook with dry rub only) and then finished on a medium heat grill for 10-15 minutes with a liberal basting of the sauce (5 minutes meat down then 10 minutes bone down). Despite what others (the purists) might say, you can make a wonderful rack of barbecued ribs entirely in the oven as long as you take your time. The last few minutes on the grill with the sauce serves to caramelize the sugars in the sauce (and make nice grill marks) but isn't absolutely necessary. [I know, I know, nothing replaces a real slow cooked rib from a smoker or a grill with wood chips...I agree...but...this works well too]

Spicy Honey Barbecued Chicken

(with Honeyed Apple-Cabbage Slaw)

I knew I would have some time today to cook a nice dinner, and I wanted to do something with grilled/barbecued chicken, but didn't want to do the simple "thrown chicken on the grill and slather with store bought barbecue sauce at the end".

Trolling the Food Network website for ideas turned up two that looked great: a brined chicken with a homemade classic style ketchup/molasses/vinegar sauce (by Tyler Florence) and an asian themed spicy honey barbecued chicken (by Emeril Lagasse). Emeril's recipe also had a terrific looking slaw recipe, so I decided to do that one. The recipe is here.

Spicy Honey BBQ Chicken with Apple-Cabbage Slaw

The marinade (which also becomes a basting sauce and finishing sauce) is very asian in character, and consists of soy sauce, vinegar, honey, sriracha (hot sauce), sesame oil, garlic, ginger, etc... I marinated the chicken for 5 hours (bone-in, skin-on pieces of chunked up split breasts and thighs).

After marinating, the chicken goes on a medium grill for 10 minutes (skin up) then 5 minutes (skin down). While the chicken grills, the marinade is boiled in a sauce pan for that entire time. This both thickens it and also removes any danger from raw chicken having been marinating in it.

When the grill time is done, the chicken goes onto a sheet pan in a 350 degree oven to finish cooking (another 20 minutes or so). While in the oven, I basted the chicken twice with the boiled sauce.

Earlier in the day I made the slaw, which is cabbage, endive, carrot, onion and apple in a sauce made from mayonnaise, sour cream, honey and apple cider vinegar.

The final dish was chicken topped with the last of the sauce, the slaw, and simple green beans with olive oil and lemon pepper.

The result - A fantastic meal. The chicken was moist, tender and packed with flavor. The slaw was cool and crunchy and a perfect counterpoint to the chicken. The green beans were...a green veg.

I'd rate this about an 8.5 out of 10 for flavor. It wasn't expensive to make, as almost everything other than the chicken was a basic pantry ingredient. It was simple to make, with the only consideration being that the chicken definitely benefits from a long marinade. Highly recommended.