Médaillons de Porc à la Crème

Table-ready in minutes! 

After weeks of posting my favorite simple recipes, I’ve decided to go all fancy-schmanzy on you. But guess what? Work through its French name and you’re home free! This recipe’s easy-peasy, too! My husband, Ron, calls this dish “insanely good.” I agree! It makes a great, great dinner-party dish or a decadent dinner for two. The whipping cream required is minimal - don’t make any substitutions! Including baking time, this fabulous dish requires only 30 minutes’ preparation. It takes top marks for ease of preparation, taste, and attractive presentation. It’s one of my very best recipes, based on one I modified years ago from the Silver Palate Cookbook. 

Médaillons de Porc à la Crème:

One lean pork tenderloin, approximately 1-lb. or 500 g

½ c. all-purpose flour

Salt, to taste

¼ c. butter or margarine

1 tbsp. oil 

½ c. whipping cream

⅓ c. mango chutney

Fresh parsley, finely chopped as garnish (do not omit)

Preheat oven to 300 deg. F. Slice pork tenderloin crosswise into approximately ten ½-inch chunks. Flatten once or twice with a heavy mallet - whacking it too thinly toughens the meat as it fries. Dredge on both sides in lightly salted flour (To “dredge” meat is to coat it on both sides before frying. I do this by shaking both the salted flour and meat in a plastic or paper bag until the meat is well coated).

Over high heat, melt butter or margarine with oil in skillet (the addition of oil will keep your butter or margarine from burning). Adding a few pieces of meat at a time to sizzling hot fat, turn meat quickly before transferring to small baking pan. Lower heat under skillet and immediately pour in whipping cream, scraping up browned bits of meat. This process is known as “deglazing” the pan. Add chutney, stirring to combine well. Pour over meat in baking pan. Cover tightly with foil, baking 20 min. Just before serving, sprinkle with finely chopped parsley.  

Dinner Party Series: Movie Night

We recently asked three friends to join us for dinner and a “Movie Night.” Knowing I wanted to do the minimum amount of work after our guests arrived, I sought make-aheads that allowed plenty of time for socializing. Dishes? They weren’t going to run away, so I left them in the sink until every guest had departed. 

I hope this occasional series indexed as Dinner Party will encourage you to slam something into the oven and invite a friend, neighbor or relative to break bread with you. This series has a secondary purpose, too. Behind the scenes, I can see from my readership numbers that you usually read the most recent recipes - missing the huge number of posts dating to 2011. 

I love to try new recipes, but routinely turn to what’s tried-and-true when time is tight. This Dinner Party series allows me to remind you of some of those recipes. 

Our recent Movie Night dinner featured two recipes that will be new to you: A great Salmon Mousse appy, and a Warm Southern Potato Toss.

One guest brought a salad; another brought armloads of asparagus, almost all of which vanished. For a pleasing color contrast, I served the asparagus with carrots, doing nothing more than giving each a simple brushing with butter.

As for the old favorites on the menu? I served Olive Cheese Balls, which our regular guests have probably come to expect. I also served one of my all-time go-to favorites, Médaillons de Porc à la Crème, (scroll past the first one or two hits to the recipe).  

Luckily, the fridge held a few sweet Crêpes I’d made a couple of days before. A ribbon of bakery-supplied custard, a few banana slices, and a scattering of blueberries quickly transformed them into dessert. The final touch: A dusting of sifted icing sugar. Done! 

As for the table ... Whimsical napkins signaled the casual nature of the meal, but I still added glints of metal, the twinkle of a candle, and the glimmer of pretty glassware. 

We gobbled dinner down, dimmed the lights, and glued our eyes to the screen. A perfect evening!

Splash on the color with a sense of fun! 

Placemats look great on bare wood. They also 

look great over a tablecloth, tone-on-tone.

The simple pleasure of getting together is often 

more memorable than the meal itself.

Pork Tenderloin with Orange Sauce

When my pal Lorna came to dinner a few days ago, I wanted to make something special. So I adapted this recipe from Canadian amateur golfer Jackie Eddy's cookbook, Slicing, Hooking and Cooking, published in 2005. My friend Barbara Lefevre says Jackie - a former food editor for the Edmonton Sun and an enthusiastic golfer - could spend the better part of a day on the golf course and still present a wonderful dinner for her guests that evening. I liked the recipe Barbara sent me from Jackie’s book, but didn’t want to spend an hour simmering a whole pork loin, as the instructions direct, so what follows is my version of the recipe, loosely based on Jackie Eddy's original. If you enjoy this dish, I hope you’ll also try my Médaillons de Porc à la Crème (see my blog of April 16, 2011). 

Pork Tenderloin with Orange Sauce:

1 lean pork tenderloin, approximately 2 lb. or 900 kg

2 tbsp. butter or margarine

2 tbsp. green onion, finely chopped

3 tbsp. freshly grated orange rind, divided

⅔ c. orange juice

½ c. dry sherry (Yes! Half a cup! How divinely decadent!)

2 tbsp. granulated sugar

½ tsp. salt

Coarsely ground pepper, to taste (I like lots)

2 tsp. tapioca starch (I routinely use tapioca starch instead of cornstarch - no lumps!)

1 tbsp. cold water

Reserved grated orange rind, as garnish

Finely chopped parsley, as garnish
1 fresh orange, sliced into ⅜-in. rounds and halved, as garnish

Slice tenderloin crosswise into 1/2-inch rounds, pounding flat with a heavy mallet. With heat set on “high,” melt butter in large skillet, swirling in pan above element so it doesn’t burn. Add meat, searing on both sides to seal in juices. Remove meat from pan and set side. Using the same unwashed pan, sauté onion in butter until tender and translucent.  Add 1 tbsp. of the orange rind, juice, sherry (at this point, Lorna joined me in the kitchen, cackling!), sugar, salt, and pepper. Return the meat to the pan. Cover and simmer slowly 10 min., or until tender, turning occasionally. Transfer the meat to a hot platter, covering to keep warm. Combine tapioca starch and water to make a paste. Gradually stir into orange mixture and bring to a boil. Lower heat, continuing to stir 1-to-2 min. or until clear. Pour sauce over meat, sprinkling with reserved orange rind and parsley. Poke halved orange slices under meat, around the platter’s edge. Serve immediately. Serves 4.

Slice tenderloin into rounds

Sear at high heat

Whoops! Too much sherry ... too much fun!

Spoon sauce over! Garnish with orange peel and parsley