Fennel & Cardamom Braised Pork Loin

Pushing a double jogger towards a towering thundercloud certainly counts as spitting in fate's eye.  I love the almost queasy feeling of an iffy course of action decided upon--if we make it home dry, it'll be a fast, fun race; if the bottom falls out, we'll be soaked and find a spot to wait it out.  Today, we were far enough from our street that a terra cotta tiled roof caught my eye.  It shelters white stuccoed benches built to house the help arriving and departing from the homes within the gates of a lovely old neighborhood.  Aside from the cars and foot traffic, there are these eerie places in the middle of the city here in the deep south where time is frozen.

On the return, I was leading the storm.  I would have had static-raised hair had we been on the water.  The cloud had blackened and stretched from end to end of the distant stretch of raised interstate.  Now, almost two hours later, nothing.  It's still grumbling, but an even gray rather than the rising triangle of grey set against bright blue.

Today I intended to write out a recipe that turned out nicely yesterday.  So far I've collected our third egg ever, gotten ballet stuff, been to the health food store, tended children, bathed a cat who somehow got a large clump of chicken poo glued to her white fur, and run a couple of miles pushing 70+ pounds of kids while sweating off my warpaint.  Time to take a minute and let the tv enthrall nap-deprived the kids for a few minutes before dinner and bed. 

So that recipe--it was a braised pork loin, and it was delicious!  When I go off the reservation and don't use a recipe, I have little confidence in the edibility of the final product.  I didn't take a single picture of the meat uncooked, the seasonings, the jar of bacon grease I keep, or the browning process for this very reason.  If it's awful, let there be no evidence.  Pretend it never happened and eat a bowl of oatmeal or get take-out. Not the case last night.  Here's when I realized it was good enough to share

Lighting is hard.  I'm not a photographer.  If you are, feel free to help me out and lessen the yellow.  It was not that yellow, but the pan sauce was nice and glossy just like the braising section of The Joy of Cooking said it should be.  If you have an enameled cast iron Dutch oven, use it for this.  Mine is a Le Creuset.  I love it so much that I eventually got the smaller size.  Actually, Frank got it for me for Christmas.  His friends think it's funny that he gifts me with cookware and doesn't get an earfull about me being a liberated woman.  I like tending to house and hearth.  It's my choice, so I can be just as liberated standing barefoot in a cutsey apron working on this dish at 3 o'clock in the afternoon as I could be working outside my house.  To each her own.  Being home is hard work.  Anyway, the blue one above is the big mamma jamma size, like hard to pick up when full big or hit an intruder over the head with big.

Take one pork loin (This one was from Sam's Club and cut in half with slices across the top.  The labeling was not very helpful as I thought they were actually slices like short ribs or something.  I threw the packaging in the trash and dumped several dustpans of floor grit on top before I thought to see how much the pork weighed.) and season well with salt and pepper on both sides.  Next, sprinkle both sides liberally with whole fennel seeds then ground cardamom, patting to be sure it sticks well.  Quality counts with spices.  Both of mine were Frontier organics and so aromatic in the jar.

Put a pot on medium to medium-high heat.  Add your fat.  I used 2-3 tablespoons bacon drippings and about 2 tablespoons good olive oil.  Your oil should be hot--not smoking hot or rippling.  Burning and browning are kissing cousins but very different, er, processes.  Add your meat.  It should sizzle immediately.  Wait a couple of minutes to check for browning.  If it sticks do NOT yank it up.  When it is properly browned, it will NOT be glued to your pot.

Once browned on both sides, add a sliver, or a chunk if yours is a garlic loving household, of fresh garlic to each top slit

Add liquid--1/3-1/2 cup of white basalmic vinegar and 1/3-1/2 cup of white wine.  You don't want more than an inch of liquid in the bottom of the pot per Joy, or the cooking bible.  If you check later and the liquid has absorbed or reduced, you can always add another splash.  Let's take a minute to talk about wine, specifically what you cook with and what you drink.  There should be NO difference.  If you wouldn't drink it, don't cook with it.  Somebody has to finish what's left in the bottle!  I'm not a big white wine fan, but this unoaked Pinot Grigio was quite tasty

See the two eggs in the background?  Eggciting and so tasty!  That's a wildcrafted fenugreek tincture behind the eggs.  It's replacing Mucinex in my medicine cabinet, though there are many other uses.  I'm shifting to homeopathic remedies rather than relying on OTCs for every little thing.  So far, my homemade elderberry juice (from fresh, local berries), local honey, some essential oils, and this little bottle have been great helpers.

Turn that heat down to LOW (the knob on my gas cooktop was literally turned all the way down), put the lid on, and leave it be.  Seriously, the whole point is for the little bit of liquid, the juices from the meat, and the steam to slowly soften and cook your meat.  Done correctly, braising produces fork tender meat every single time.  It is not a perfect science, though.  Every stove, pot, cut of meat is a little different.  Forget about it for at least an hour once you are sure the temperature is right.  When you check, you should be greeted with a cloud of steam as you lift the lid.  It gets more and more aromatic as it cooks down.  Never should your liquid be boiling.  It's more of a steam room than a jacuzzi.

Mine took between 2 1/2 and 3 hours to look like this

See how the fennel seeds reconstituted without burning and the meat is golden to caramel color?  It's that caramelization that produces the complx flavor in your pan sauce.  You want your cooking liquid to bubble up initially and get up the browned (not burned!) bits from the bottom just after browning.  If you like, you can carefully remove your meat once tender and reduce the sauce down to concentrate flavors further.  Just add your meat back once you get the sauce just right.

While I hovered over the pot and nibbled on this, my children sat at the table picking off fennel seeds and begging for ketchup.  Let's hope their taste buds develop in the coming years (says the woman who dips even the most hoity toity steak in the stuff).  We enjoyed ours with whole baked sweet potatoes and roasted beets seasoned with olive oil and a little S&P.  The sweet potatoes were so good that there was no need even for butter.  No action shots of it all plated up.  I was busy wiping kids and deciding that I did indeed enjoy that wine.

What's your favorite accidentally delicious home recipe?