Almost Enough Garlic

[akirlu]

This variant on a recipe I found on the internets worked rather well last night. The slits in the meat were deep enough that the garlic mixture didn't over-cook and lose its wonderfully garlicky pungency. Very yum. As usual, I forgot to deglaze the pan for gravy. Recipe also works nicely if you add cherry or apricot preserves to the garlic mixture, but I did not remember it this time.

Garlic roasted tenderloin of pork

1 lb tenderloin of pork
5-6 cloves of garlic
2 tsp chopped fresh rosemary
3-4 T olive oil
1 small lime
A handful of pistachio nuts, chopped
Salt and pepper, to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Crush the garlic and mash it together with the rosemary, olive oil, pistachio nuts, and the juice of half the lime. Blend thoroughly to a paste, and add salt and pepper. Squeeze the juice of the other half of the lime onto the meat and rub it in. Salt lightly. Slit the loin in several places along its length with a sharp knife. Fill the slits with the crushed garlic mixture and rub the rest over the meat, adding olive oil as needed. Place the loin into a pre-heated cast-iron pan lightly coated with olive oil and brown the bottom and sides. Transfer the pan to the oven, and roast for about an hour, basting periodically.

When the pork is cooked through (this seems to happen at the rate of about 1 hour per lb of meat), remove from the oven and place the loin on a plate or cutting board to rest for a few minutes while you de-glaze the pan with wine or beer or whatever fluid you have handy.

Serve with herb-baked potatoes that have been cooking on the other rack in the oven.