Pork Tenderloin Roulades

By sketchy on January 7, 2008 8:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

I've blogged about these before, but this time I have better pictures, a different recipe, and I will try to elaborate on the steps a little more.

When making this dish, the flavors are the most important thing to think about. You want something that will stand out, and the flavors need to meld together. I don't serve this dish with a sauce - so you want strong and vibrant flavors. Fruits, vegetables, and spices that are intense work very well. In the past, I've done sun dried tomato basil pesto, red pepper curry, basil pesto with provolone and olives, sun dried tomato olive tapenade, and a few fruit based variants.

Once you have the skills down, this is an easy dish to prepare. The most difficult thing is flattening the pork out, and that's pretty easy. Well, I guess I should start the recipe :D

Sun Dried Tomato-Olive Tapenade Pork Roulades

Filling Ingredients:

Sun Dried Tomato-Olive Tapenade
5 1/2oz Olive Medley
Sun Dried Tomato Paste
2 garlic cloves
2 sprigs oregano
1 tsp dried thyme
ground black pepper
horseradish
1/4 dried chipotle pepper (minced)
1/2 red pepper
2 tsp sweet smoked Spanish paprika

Mince the red pepper, olives, and garlic together. Mix it with the sun dried tomato paste (this will help bind it together), chipotle, thyme, black pepper, and oregano. Mix very well and reserve for the pork. This can be made a day ahead of time. Set the horseradish aside for later.

On to the pork. First, we need to pick which tenderloin we want to use and remove the silverskin. This is the silvery blue connective tissue near the top of the tenderloin. If you don't remove this, your pork will distort and pull up. This is the same thing that makes grilled pork curl up. It is a simple procedure, and it goes measures into making your dish look better.

Prepare a baking pan with a wire rack fit into it. Spray the rack with nonstick oil. Next, we butterfly the pork. Cut it down the center, but do not cut it in half. You want the knife to come about 1/4 of an inch from the bottom. You want to repeat this two more times. One for each half. If you still have a really large section, butterfly it again.

Now, place both sides of the pork between two sheets of plastic wrap. With the outside of the pork facing down, use a meat tenderizer to hammer the meat down. Use the spiky side first, then flip the hammer and use the flat side to flatten and form the pork. You are looking for 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch in thickness. The thinner the better, but do not destroy the pork, if you over work it, you will leave gaping holes when you roll it up.

Next, evenly spread the filling across the pork, leaving 1/2 inch at the top so the seam can form. Roll it up and tuck the ends if they are uneven or loose.

Place the pork, seam side down, on the wire rack. coat the outside of the pork with canola oil, then sprinkle with sea salt (or kosher) and black pepper.