Mondays have a nasty habit of sneaking up on you. No matter how relaxing and/or fun your weekend was, no matter how much sleep you got, or how much time you spent watching movies and/or commercials with your Cousin, Aunt, and Uncle; Mondays still hit you like a ton of bricks. Today was just such a Monday, and even though I had good PT session in the morning, and I got a number of fairly important things done at work, it still felt like a serious Monday problem.
I get a daily email from Prevention.com that sends me recipes. Most of the time I ignore the recipe and/or open it so it’s not sitting unopened in my inbox and then proceed to forget that it ever existed. However, today I knew I had pork thawing and the recipe I received was for Sweet and Spicy Pork. When I arrived at my humble abode I checked out the recipe a little more closely and decided I’d make it but with some modifications. I had already determinedto have some roasted fennel alongside it, since February is the month I nix all soda from my diet, and also try to nix my carbs (mostly in order to force me to try new things).
Sweet and Spicy Pork and Roasted Fennel – from my brain via Prevention.com
Ingredients:
- Ground Cumin - check
- Ground Cinnamon - check
- Pepper - check
- Salt - check
- Allspice (Jamaican) - check
- Chili powder - check
- 2 clove crushed and chopped garlic - check
- Pork portion - check
- Veg oil - check
- Honey - check
- Fennel bulb - check
- Oregano – check
Step 1: Preheat the oven to 350F. Crush and chop the garlic; put into separate tiny casserole dishes, unless you don’t have a tiny casserole dish in which case use your discretion. Pour a tiny splash of oil over each pile of garlic bits. Put the garlic into the oven while you prep the fennel.
Step 2: Prep fennel…see youtube how to do this here; you should have done parts of this the day you bought the fennel because it makes your life so much easier.
Step 3: Take your casserole dishes out of the oven. In a bowl mix half the fennel with one of the sets of garlic and oil, toss in some oregano and a bit of salt and pepper. Place back into the casserole dish.
Step 4: Wipe the bowl you used for the fennel and mix cumin, cinnamon, pepper, salt, allspice, and chili powder. I didn’t use exact measurements but you want to have approximately the same amount of each spice.
Step 5: In the casserole dish with the garlic and oil, squeeze just a touch (rougly ¼ tsp) of honey and mix well.
Step 6: Coat your pork portion first with the spices, then with the honey/garlic/oil glaze. Try to make it even all over.
Step 7: If your pork is a pretty big honker, put the pork in the oven for 15min while you do the dishes. When your timer goes off, flip the pork. Then put the pork and the fennel into the oven for 25minutes or until cooked (it might need another 10minutes).
This meal turned out very light and very interesting. Perhaps my palate is finally becoming sophisticated; the pork was perfectly tender with only a hint of sweetness. I could tell I probably used just a little more cinnamon than the other spices but it was for sure a dish I’d make again. The original recipe called for hot sauce too which I would have incorporated if I’d READ THE WHOLE RECIPE instead of skimming it. The book I’m reading, a geeky science+food book I’m sure I’ll mention again, deplores the practice of skimming recipes…I guess this just proved to me yet again that I need to be better at being fully engaged in the recipe before I start cooking. Lesson possibly learned. As for the fennel, it was a win. I love fennel, no matter how my dear friend KP feels.
Sweet and Spicy Pork and Roasted Fennel
No comments:
Post a Comment