Pork tenderloin: Adventures in tying meat

Pork loin, after, all porky and delicious.

So there was a sale at the grocery store for buy one, get one free pork tenderloins.

I couldn’t resist, even though I’ve never cooked one before.

The recipe I settled on (with plans for a few tweaks) suggested tying the meat. My mom was never big on tying meat before roasting it, but I’ve read a lot of good things about the results when you do. So I decided to go for it.

This article for tying a “chain hitch” was the first one I clicked on, and although it seems like it’d be more useful for a larger cut of meat, I decided to try it. The summary of the steps was a little confusing to read, but when I followed the diagram, it was easy as pie.

1. Loop the string around the left side of the short end and tie a knot.
2. Pull the string an inch or so to the right and hold it there against the meat. That point will extend to become sort of the center seam of your hitch.
3. From that point, loop the string around the meat again. When you bring the string back to the 1-inch spot, pull the string under itself and through at that center seam and pull tight. That’s a link of the chain.
4. Pull the string out another inch to the right, wrap it around, pull it through itself and pull tight. Repeat the rest of the way down the meat until it’s all tied.

And then it looks something like this:

Pork loin, before. My first attempt at tying meat. I got better as I went from left to right.

I suppose it could have been done more simply, but this really wasn’t hard at all.

And now for the recipe …

I started with this recipe and wanted to roast the pork with some potatoes, because when you cook potatoes in pork drippings, magical things happen.

Original ingredients

• 1 boneless pork loin, 2-3 pounds
• 2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 1 tsp thyme
• 3 minced garlic cloves
• 1 bay leaf, crushed
• It also called for 1 tsp of sage but I didn’t have any.

Other things I added

• A bit of olive oil, maybe 1-2 Tbsp
• 2 potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks
• 1/2 a red onion, quartered
• Another splash of olive oil

Preparation

1. Tie up your meat.
2. Combine salt, pepper, thyme, garlic and bay leaf. This is where I added the first 1-2 tbsp of oil. Mix well and rub the mixture all over the pork. (I didn’t think the herbs would stick well without the oil.) Cover and refrigerate overnight.
3. Preheat oven to 375.
4. Put potato and onion in a roasting pan, and drizzle with a splash of oil. Place the pork on top of the potatoes*.
5. Roast for about an hour and a half, until the pork’s internal temperature hits at least 145 degrees.
6. Rest the meat for at least 15 minutes before carving.

*This isn’t exactly what I did. Another recipe I was looking at suggested adding the potatoes to the pan about half way through cooking. So that’s what I did — added them after about 40 minutes. But they weren’t done then. I left them in the pan to soften up while the meat rested, by which point they were fine. So there’s a decent chance that if you add the potatoes at the start, they might get too soft by the time the pork is done.

So … If you try this, let me know how the taters come out. Otherwise, I have a whole ‘nother pork loin in the fridge to try again!