hello this is chef john from food wishes calm with bacon-wrapped cranberry walnut
pork that's right my favorite kind of recipes to share are the ones that look
super complicated and looked like they take a lot of time and effort to do when
they are actually relatively quick and easy to put together and by the way how
simple this is is gonna be our secret okay when our guests asked was that as
hard to make as it looks will say yes yes it was but you know what you are
worth it or something to that effect and to get
started here what we're gonna need first is one fully trimmed pork tenderloin
which is generally how they're sold these days but once you unwrap yours if
you see some of that silvery tough membranes still attached go ahead and
trim it off and then what we're gonna do here is sort of roll it over on its side
because we're gonna need to butterfly this and what that means is cut straight
down the middle but not all the way through okay we only want to go like 2/3
to 3/4 of the way through okay so take your time and please be careful because
what'll happen if you do cut all the way through is that you'll have to stop and
make another recipe but assuming that your butterflying went perfectly what
we'll do next is sandwich that between a couple pieces of plastic wrap and then
using a meat pounder or some other flat heavy object we will pound this out to
approximately 1/4 inch thick okay maybe slightly under but we don't
want to go too thin because once we roll this we do want to maintain a certain
thickness of meat and then our post pounding production will involve
seasoning this very generously with kosher salt as well as some freshly
ground black pepper and then in a little bit of a plot twist
we are gonna spread over a little bit of Dijon mustard all right now very much
only like a teaspoon or two and we will spread that over until we have a nice
thin coating and then once our meats been mustard it'd we're gonna scatter
over a little bit of freshly chopped pork friendly herbs which in my case are
going to be some minced rosemary as well as some thinly sliced sage leaves and
then once applied we can use our spoon to kind of distribute those evenly or at
least semi evenly all right just get it close that's all we ever asked and then
next up we're going to do a very very light sprinkling of breadcrumbs since
whenever you roast something like this you're going to create juices
which cannon will leak out but by doing a little bit of breadcrumb inside those
will actually get absorbed and we can eat them so we will do a little dusting
of breadcrumbs at which point we can scatter over as much chopped walnut and
dry cranberries we want and I probably should have measured those but I didn't
but luckily thanks to the magic of video you can see how much I'm putting on oh
and in case you're keeping score at home those walnuts we're toasted lightly
first which always brings out a little more flavor but anyway we will apply
those over the top and of course any rogue pieces that tried to escape will
be placed back on which plan will fold either end in about an inch or so and
then proceed to roll this up as tightly and neatly as we can and please note I
like to leave about an inch unfruitful
to complete this roll with a fairly clean seam at the bottom and that's it
once we've shaped that into his uniform a tube as we can we will simply wrap
this up and transfer it into fridge for at least an hour ok because cold meat is
always easier to work with plus that will give our meat a little bit of time
to start absorbing those flavors so I popped mine in the fridge for about 60
minutes at which point I pulled it out and transferred it onto this foil lined
pan and then even though the inside was fairly well-seasoned we still do want to
lightly season the outside which I did with a blend of kosher salt freshly
ground black pepper and cayenne all right so not too much just a light
sprinkling and then once that's been seasoned we will go ahead and wrap it in
bacon and not just any bacon cheap bacon and why I want you to use cheap bacon is
it it tends to be the thinnest sliced bacon which is going to work a lot
better here since this only cooked for about 25 minutes to a half hour which is
really not enough time to properly cook thick sliced bacon and I know sure you
can partially cook the bacon and then wrap this but I always find that a lot
harder to work with so like I said just trying to find the thinnest sliced bacon
you can and we will go ahead and wrap the length trying our best to keep the
bacon to a single layer with somehow the ends ending up underneath alright if you
don't have enough bacon to go all the way over just leave it underneath and
then start the next piece that way the bacon along the top will render out and
Brown evenly and by the way if you're not into the
smokiness you can use pancetta for this or even a few slices of prosciutto if
you want alright that's up to you I mean you are
after all the Bjork of your mummified pork and that's it once our pork is
bacon-wrapped it is ready to transfer into the center of a 450 degree oven for
about 25 minutes or so or until we hit an internal temp of at least 145 and
then if we want while that is roasting we can go ahead and make a simple sauce
to serve alongside as in really simple since all we're gonna do is take a
splash of white wine plus a little bit of balsamic vinegar or the vinegar of
your choice as well as one spoon of Dijon and what we'll do is whisk that
together over medium heat and simply cook it keeping a close eye on it until
it reduces by about half and yes of course we can roast our pork in a pan
and then just make the sauce while it's resting which works fine if you're just
doing this for a few people or it's not a fancy holiday meal but if you're gonna
be busy and or stressed making the sauce while your pork roasts and having it
ready is a lot easier and then all we need to do to finish this once it
reduces by about half is turn off the heat and toss in a couple pieces of cold
butter along with a little pinch of salt and pepper and as soon as those get
stirred in and emulsified our sauce is done if for a bigger pan the whisk would
be fine here prefer a small pan like this is probably
better just a shaken swirl and you'll see after doing that for just about 30
seconds to a minute that butter will disappear and you will be left with a
shiny absolutely gorgeous looking sauce which of course will taste for seasoning
but remember it's gonna go under that beautifully seasoned pork loin so don't
do too much and speaking of pork loin by now it should be cooked and looking
pretty hot and tempting which people used to refer to as fat until people
like me started using the term and then they stopped but anyway that's looking
amazing and I'd love to slice right in but we should probably wait for at least
five minutes to give that a little bit of a rest at which point then it's okay
to slice in which I like to do it a little bit of an angle which is really
gonna show off our beautiful spiral pattern inside and even though it might
have looked like we had a little too much stuffing when we rolled this as you
can see once baked it gonna be the perfect amount of stuffing
to the amount of meat and I'm sorry but I had to pull off and try that little
piece of bacon which then inspired me to cut off the end piece and eat that which
truly was incredible but anyway we'll cut a few nice thick slices and serve
that over our sauce oh and a little tip for you young recipe video producers try
not to block the shot with your large hairy hand that is not a great look
although once properly arranged this is a great look and like I said in the
intro looks like it's really complicated and hard to make and then above and
beyond a studying appearance this really is an incredibly delicious combination
of flavors all right we have that slightly smoky richness of the bacon
with that lightly herb scented pork and then when you add in that little bit of
Tang enos from the mustard plus the earthiness of our walnuts which are all
contrasted perfectly with those little sweet and sour nuggets of cranberry when
you put all that together you're talking about something very special indeed I
mean the only downside here is how long and hard and difficult and complicated
this is to make okay that's our story and we're sticking to it but anyway
whether you admit this was simple and easy to make or not I really do hope you
give it a try soon so head over to food wishes comm for all the ingredient
amounts and more info as usual and as always enjoy
you