Maple Glazed Pork Tenderloin

Pork tenderloin is the Psoas major muscle along the the central spine between the shoulder blade and hip joint of the pig. This muscle supports the inner organs and is not used for locomotion. As a result it is the most tender part of the pig. One of the local, smaller grocery stores often puts pork tenderloin on sale so whenever I stop there I aways check.

Sliced Pork Tenderloin

Pork tenderloin is very easy to cook. My preferred method is braising. Braising is simply searing the meat then cooking in a liquid or sauce. This is an excellent way to cook tougher cuts of meat which really isn't necessary for pork tenderloin but it gives lovely results.

To sear: Heat vegetable oil in a cast iron or stainless steel fry pan on medium-high heat. The oil should sizzle with a drop of water. Add the meat and brown on all sides. Remove the meat. Deglaze the pan. Add to whatever sauce you are using.

To moist cook: Place the seared pork tenderloin into a 9" X 9" baking pan. Pour the glaze (recipe follows) over the meat. Cover tightly with tin foil. Bake at 350ºF for 1 hour. Partially remove the foil to allow the sauce to reduce for about 15 minutes. Remove the meat from the pan. Allow to rest 5 minutes. Slice on the diagonal.

Maple Glaze

½ c maple syrup
2½ tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp butter
sea salt
fresh ground pepper

Sprinkle the pork tenderloin with salt and pepper. Mix the maple syrup and lemon juice together and pour over the meat. Add butter in smaller chunks. After cooking the remaining sauce can be thickened with a cornstarch slurry if desired.


Pork Tenderloin Dinner

Pork tenderloin is one of my favourite meats because it is small enough to thaw quickly, it's easy to prepare and simply by changing the sauce you can quite lovely results. It is a small enough cut of meat that if feeds the two of us with little or no left overs.

Thursday's dinner was maple glazed pork tenderloin. The flavour of maple just melds so nicely with pork making maple syrup the perfect accent ingredient for pork. I served the pork tenderloin with steamed potatoes and home frozen cauliflower as pictured. The cauliflower was boiled just to heat through then drained, lightly buttered and sprinkled with nutmeg. Nutmeg enhances the flavour of the cauliflower and it goes well with the flavour of maple syrup. Butter is a must! As many of you know I use only butter but in this case butter rounds out the overall flavour of the meal. It was a lovely winter meal!

Homemade Shake & Bake Chicken

Anytime we have a traditional or family favourite especially those from the days of being a young bride, I look for ways to improve it while still keeping the favour and feeling of the dish. Our fancy Sunday dinner when I was a young bride was Shake & Bake® chicken, mashed potatoes and niblet corn. I've talked about this before on this blog. This meal is still considered comfort food even though I have made a few changes. Quite often I serve this meal with baked potatoes because the oven is already on so making baked potatoes saves energy. The biggest change made was making my own coating mix for a fraction of the cost of store bought!

The Mix & Storing

Shake & Bake® is a simple, ready to use coating mix that comes with two packets of the mix and 2 plastic bags. When it first came out in the original flavour for chicken it immediately became quite popular. The concept was very simple - pour the mix into one of the bags, add the chicken pieces then shake to coat and bake the coated chicken.

The last time I looked and it has been quite some time ago Shake & Bake® was $2.49 for about 2 cups of mix or $1.25 per cup. The Bulk Barn sells a chicken coating for $1.49 per lb or 37¢ per cup. But if you make your own using homemade bread crumbs the cost per cup is 7¢ per cup. Not only is homemade chicken coating cheaper you can easily adjust the sodium and do a bit of tweaking to get exactly what you what. You are also eliminating any artificial flavourants, colourants and preservatives. The best part is whipping up a batch of this coating mix takes less than 10 minutes on a slow day! This coating mix is every bit as good if not better than store bought!

I use my KitchenAid® stand mixer to mix the ingredients thoroughly (1). This recipe makes 9 cups but for most uses only 1 - 1½ of the coating mix is needed so I vacuum seal in a 1.5 L mason jar (2) using my FoodSaver. This will keep the coating mix fresh until needed. The rest is put into a 1 L (quart) mason jar (3) for immediate use. About 1/3 of this jar was used for dinner but that could have been cut back just a little. I don't measure just pour a bit into a Ziploc® container then add as much chicken that will comfortably fit. Then I shake to coat well and remove the coated chicken to a waiting Silpat® lined baking sheet (4). I repeat this if needed adding a bit more coating mix if necessary.

Homemade Shake & Bake Chicken Coating
source:  Garden Gnome

4 c dry bread crumbs
4 c unbleached flour
2 tbsp sea salt
2 tbsp organic cane sugar*
2 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp onion powder
2 tsp dried parsley
3 tbsp paprika
1 tbsp poultry seasoning
1 tsp pepper
¼ c vegetable oil

Place all the ingredients except the oil into the bowl of a KitchenAid® stand mixer. Set to setting 1. Stir 1 minute. With the mixer still on setting 1 drizzle the oil into the mixture. Allow to mix well. Pour into jars for storing and vacuum seal.

Yield: 9 cups

*I have not tried this recipe using a sugar substitute but it should work fine although the substitute may not cause the same degree of caramelization.

Chicken Dinner

I use the coating mix just as you would store bought coating mix except I use a re-usable container to coat the coating in place of a disposable plastic bag. Anytime you an eliminate something disposable in the kitchen you save money and you lower your carbon footprint. Once the chicken is coated, I bake at 375ºF for 40 minutes or until juices run clear.
This mix is ideal for chicken (bone in or boneless) or you can use it for chicken fried steak.

Pictured is our updated shake & bake chicken using the homemade coating mix and served with baked potatoes instead of mashed for Wednesday's dinner. Occasionally I still serve this dish with mashed potatoes for old time sake. One thing that hasn't changed is the niblet corn although that is no longer store bought either. My husband gave the meal another thumbs up while enjoying this family favourite from our early married days.

Kitchen Quick Tips - Garnishes

Garnishing even a very simple dish will take it from ordinary to special. Choose the ingredient (eg. garnish lemon pepper white fish with parsley and lemon slices) you want to highlight from the dish then garnish with that to give a visual clue as to the flavour of the dish. Alternately choose your garnish from an ingredient that offsets your dish (eg. spicier soups garnish with a dollop of sour cream or yogurt).

Sweet & Sour Chicken Wings

You just can't beat the old, tried and true family recipes handed down through the generations. When we were first married my cooking skills were limited, something I worked hard to remedy since my husband loves to eat. My Mom was a great cook with all her recipes stored safely in her head! I watched, learned and took notes. My MIL shared several recipes of their family favourites as well. More often than not these were not actual recipes but more verbal add this, this and this. They weren't written down so I would be frantically writing as she told me how to make the dish and what ingredients to use. I'd watch her make the meal to see her methods. Sweet & Sour chicken wings was one of those recipes. Over the years this has remained one of our family favourites as well.

Sweet & Sour Chicken Wings

I don't think I've seen Sweet & Sour chicken wings done this way anywhere else. The wings are not coated and they are not crispy as most wings are in restaurants. The meat is extremely tender and juicy. The sauce is thinner than a Chinese sweet & sour sauce. There is no pineapple chunks or juice yet the sauce is nicely flavoured.

This recipe was one of the first ones I got from my MIL. There were no actual measurements. It didn't take me long to figure our the portions through a bit of trial and error. We like the sauce as is without thickening beyond the reducing stage but you can thicken with a corn starch slurry if desired. I often use frozen chicken wings for this dish.

Sweet & Sour Chicken Wings

5 lb chicken wings
5 c water
3 c ketchup
¾ c white vinegar
¾ c packed brown sugar
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp prepared yellow mustard
1 finely chopped onion

Place the chicken wings in a roasting pan. Pour the water over them. Cover and bake at 275ºF for about 1½ hours if the wings were frozen, 1 hour if the wings are fresh. Pour most of the liquid off the wings reserving it for making stock later. [Cool reserve liquid, freeze until ready to make stock.] Mix the remaining ingredients together. Pour over the wings. Stir the wings to coat. Cover and return to the oven at 300ºF for 1 hour. Raise temperature to 350ºF. Remove lid. Allow the wings to continue cooking until the sauce is reduced to desired consistency.

Plated

As you can tell from my husband's plate, he loves sweet & sour chicken wings cooked this way! I always served the wings with rice. I use a large slotted spoon to carefully remove the wings. They are rather delicate because the meat is so tender it falls from the bone easily.

This time I served the sweet & sour wings with Arborio rice cooked in chicken stock and butter using a rice cooker. The sweet & sour sauce flavours the chicken wings through to the bone and gosh are they ever good! It clings to the wings as well. We like ladling some of the sauce over the rice. Served with a garden salad the wings make a lovely, low prep meal.