Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Balsamic Marinated Pork Tenderloin with Grilled Grapes

Great recipe, not so great photo. Sorry!



My photos aren't the greatest because I do my cooking at night and the best lighting for photographing food is natural light. I almost didn't post this recipe because I wasn't happy with the photo - but it's soooo good I have to share it! I'm looking into getting some photo boxes with some lighting to help with my pictures. Hopefully I'll find something this winter!

On with the recipe! We had friends over for dinner on Saturday and I wanted to make pork tenderloin on the grill. I've had my eye on this recipe in Cuisine at Home for three years and I finally gave it a try. ;) I love pork tenderloin but only have a few recipes that I really like enough to make over and over. One is the pork tenderloin wrapped with puff pastry and the other one I just realized I have not posted on my blog! Not sure how that happened but I'll work on getting that up here soon!

This tenderloin recipe is very easy with great flavor. The lemon honey sauce is what makes this dish so don't skip that part. I think it really needs to be served over polenta as well.

Pork & Grape Ingredients:
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1 T whole grain mustard
1 lb pork tenderloin, trimmed
salt & pepper
8 oz cluster grapes
2 t olive oil
ground black pepper

Lemon Honey sauce ingredients:
1/4 cup shallots, thinly sliced
1/4 cup dry white wine
1 sprig fresh rosemary
1 cup chicken broth
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
2 T honey
2 T butter, cold

Polenta ingredients: (I couldn't find ground polenta, Whole Foods probably has it, so I used the prepackaged stuff they have in the grocery stores and added water, salt and parmesan cheese)
1 1/2 cups water
1 cup skim milk
1/2 cup fine ground polenta
pinch of salt
2 T Parmesan cheese, shredded
ground white pepper to taste

Polenta Directions:
Bring water, milk, polenta, and salt to a boil in a saucepan over medium high heat, stirring often. Reduce heat to medium and simmer until polenta is the consistency of hot cereal, 5 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in the parmesan and pepper. Cover and keep warm until ready to serve.

Pork & Grape Directions:
Whisk balsamic and mustard together in shallow baking dish. Add tenderloin, turn to coat, marinate 10 minutes. (I marinated mine for about an hour)

Preheat grill to medium heat. Remove pork from marinade and season with salt and pepper. Place tenderloin on the grill, cover and cook 10 minutes. You can brush tenderloin with marinade if you like before flipping. Gently toss grapes with oil and pepper in a bowl and arrange grape clusters on grill. Cover and cook 10 more minutes (the grapes might be done sooner) or until pork reaches 150 degrees and grapes have turned slightly lighter in color. Let pork rest 5 minutes, then slice into 1 inch thick pieces.

Lemon Honey Sauce Directions:

Saute shallots in oil in a saucepan over medium heat until softened, about 2 minutes. Deglaze with wine, add rosemary, and simmer until nearly all liquid evaporates, about 3 minutes. Add broth, lemon juice, and honey. Simmer until reduced to 1 cup, about 15 minutes. Remove and discard rosemary, the swirl in butter. Serve slices of pork on polenta and drizzle with sauce. Garnish with grapes.

2 comments:

Michelle in NC said...

This pork dish is so good! I also found it in that magazine but lost it. Got online to try to find it, so glad you posted this! Its so easy & taste so good. Great for company. I only do the grapes & tenderloin. Thank you so much!! Love your blog now I found it.

Stefanie said...

I am so glad you liked it! I remember making this and it was so yummy. I have kind of forgotten about this one. I think I'll make it this weekend. Thanks! :)