An inexpensive yet fancy family meal that everyone will surely love. Pork tenderloin is first brined for extra flavor and moisture, cooked to perfection and served with a delicious apple sage sauce.
How did it turn out for you?
To prepare the pork tenderloin, first remove the silver skin.
Next, prepare the brine. Place the salt and sugar in a bowl, along with 2 cups of hot water. Stir to dissolve. Crush the garlic and add it to the brine along with the peppercorns, bay leaves, maple syrup
and the remaining cold water. Pour the brine over the pork tenderloin and place into the refrigerator for 1 1/2 to 2 hours.
Remove the tenderloins from the brine, pat dry and place in the refrigerator until ready to cook.
Preheat over to 375° degrees.
Heat a frying pan over medium-high heat and add the butter and oil. Season the pork tenderloins with the pepper. Next, add the tenderloins to the pan and cook for about 2 to 3 minutes per side, or until golden brown. Once the pork is fully browned on all sides, transfer to a baking sheet and place into the oven for approximately 20 minutes, or until it is cooked to your desired doneness.
Note: Don't clean the pan. It'll be used in the next step to build the sauce.
While the pork is in the oven, slice the onions. Peel, core and wedge the apples into 1/4" -inch to 1/2" -inch wedges.
Add the oil and butter to the same pan used for the pork, once hot, add the onions and fry for a few minutes until they start to caramelize. Then add the apples and saute for another 2 minutes or until the apples also start to caramelize.
Next, add the white wine, apple cider, chicken stock and simmer for about 5 minutes. While that is simmering, chop the fresh sage and set it aside.
To thicken the sauce, mix cornstarch and water together to form a slurry. Slowly add it to the sauce. Add just enough to get the desired consistency. You may not need it all (or you may need a bit more) to get the proper consistency.
Season to taste with salt and pepper and add the butter. Reduce the heat to very low. You can also hold this sauce in a double boiler until ready to serve.
When ready to serve, add the chopped sage and gently mix to combine.
The pork is ready when it is still a bit pink in the middle. To test for doneness, use a meat thermometer. For medium doneness, the pork should be between 135° and 140° degrees Fahrenheit. For well done, cook the pork to 165° degrees Fahrenheit.
Let the pork rest for at least 15 minutes before slicing and plating. Slice the pork against the grain into half-inch slices. Place about 3 slices onto each plate and pour over some of the apple sage sauce over top.
Brining the pork for 1 1/2 to 2 hours will make a world of difference for this dish, which will leave the pork flavorful and moist. It is, however, an optional step. Try it both ways to see for yourself.
The sauce is best with home made chicken stock. Other low-sodium, store-bought chicken stock can be used, but the sauce will be considerably lighter in color and texture.
This pork tenderloin is even delicious without the sauce and can also be served with apple sauce or caramelized onions.
Serving suggestion: Soft Herb Polenta and Sauteed Green Beans.
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Prepare esta receta, y esta muy buena, solo que no puse la hierba que se le agrega al final de la salsa de manzana, porque no la encontre en los ingredientes.
La acompane con unas rodajas de pinas que ase junto con la carne de cerdo.
Gracias, esta muy buena.
I love to entertain, but also like spendng time with my guests. If there are any steps that can be completed ahead of time, they would be appreciated. How about the sauce for instance, right up until the cornstarch? Could the tenderloins be seared and set aside for roasting later?
Thank you
The brining can be done 1 or 2 days in advance and yes the pork tenderloins can be seared ahead and then refrigerated. Just bring them to room temperature again before cooking them in the oven.
I don't think I would make the sauce ahead, as the apples and onions would suffer a bit. But you can slice the onions, but I would wait to slice the apples.
The polenta is a good one to make ahead. If you go to the recipe for polenta there are even tips for making it ahead.
The green bean recipe also has tips for making them ahead. You can blanch them and place into an ice bath and even prepare the mise en place for them.
I am all for having fun when guests arrive so I hope that helps.
My family loved this. I did not review any of the prep before comments, but plan to make this for a dinner party in a week, and didnt want the smell of the browning in the house. Now I will be able to prep the day before. Cant wait to serve this to my guests. Served with a garlic/chesey mashed potato(not on site) and the roasted carrots with balsamic vinegar(on site). Dinner was a hit, and my fiance wants me to stop working and just stay home in the kitchen. I would love to, but dont want to just eat mac and cheese. Thanks for this recipe and this site. I look forward to trying many new dishes, and entertaining many times over in my new kitchen, with this new found site.
S
You sure could use this recipe for the roast. The only difference would be that the cooking time will just be a bit longer. Cook the loin to the same temperature as the pork tenderloin and make sure to let it rest for at least 15 minutes or so before slicing it.
I think this would be a great thing to do with the pork loin, as pork and apples are the best of friends!
Hope this helps - dawn
I'm in Canada, so to me apple cider is an alcoholic beverage (think Strongbow) - but I know that it means something else in the States. Which version are you looking for in this recipe? and if you're using the US meaning, can I substitute apple juice? many thanks
Definitely do not leave in the brine. Remove it and store in the refrigerator. For more details and to learn the basics of brining, watch the lesson on How to Brine.
Good luck!
Hi Matthew,
I am no pro with wine selections, but I do love to drink it! :) I often turn to my trusty book called “What to Drink with What You Eat" by Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page. It breaks down the wines that pair well with particular foods and highlights the grapes that go best. For this dish, they recommend a light-bodied Pinot Noir or Zinfandel. Your instincts were right. Hope this helps! Happy Cooking!
Step 3: "While the pork is cooking in the oven, peel, core and slice the onions. Next peel and wedge the apples into 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch wedges."
Are onions and apples reversed in these two sentences?
The pork is brining now. I'm excited for my christmas dish!
Sorry about that...the order is correct (as per the video); however the words were a bit mixed up. The text has been fixed now...slice the onions and then peel, core and wedge the apples.
Thanks for keeping us on our toes :-)
Enjoy your dinner and don't forget to let the pork rest before you slice it. Happy Cooking!
So glad that you liked the pork. Brining really does make a difference. To answer your question, the significant difference between a marinade and brine is that salt is the key element of a brine. Brining also involves osmosis to exchange the liquid from the brine with the moisture inside the meat. Marinating on the other hand uses acidity to break down (denature) the texture of the meats surface.
For more information on brining I suggest watching the cooking school lesson on How To Brine. Cheers!
I am embarrassed to say that I did so many things differently, yet my pork turned out wonderful! Went to the supermarket a couple of hours ago and bought butterfly pork steaks for dinner. I didn't have time to brine the pork, merely seasoned it with salt and pepper and pan fried the pork using the flip often method which I learned from this website. Couldn't find fresh sage and cider vinegar, hence I had to make do with whatever ingredients I had on hand, i.e. half a bottle of white wine, chicken stock, onions and Fuji apples. And to my amazement, it turned out well! The pork was tender and juicy and the sauce was slightly tangy and light. I am sure this dish will taste phenomenal with brining and the addition of fresh sage and vinegar. Will definitely prepare it again when I get hold of all the ingredients listed in the recipe!:)
The salt is used more "to taste" in the sauce. We recommend letting the sauce reduce first and then taste it for seasoning (salt).
For more info on pan sauces, watch the cooking school lesson on How to Make Pan Sauces. Cheers!
In "Step 3: Making the Sauce" I noticed that the text recipe calls for grapeseed oil. Only a few days ago, I believe the recipe indicated to use olive oil. Is grapeseed oil absolutely essential for this sauce, or would it be OK to substitute olive oil? Thanks for your help.
Any neutral flavored oil that has a high smoke point will do. So in short, yes olive oil will also work. Cheers!
This is probably not the proper place for this question. I would like to make Tripe a la Mode de Caen. I have tried this dish in Wash. DC and found it delicious. The recipe that I have calls for calves foot. Cannot get it around here. Any good substitutes?
Also I would like recommendations for French cookbooks. I have 2 vols. of Julia, Paul Bocuse, etc. Any others/
Jorge
I would start a new thread (one for the first question and one for the second question) instead of asking it here as this is a thread about this particular pork dish and these questions will get lost in here. Cheers!
Essentially you are making a pan sauce so really you can use which ever you like.
For more information, I encourage you to watch the cooking school lesson on How to Make a Pan Sauce. Cheers!
Here is a good link that provides plenty of substitutes. Cheers!
Hi!
I was planning on brining the pork tonight and cooking it tomorrow. Unfortunately I forgot it in the fridge and left it in the brine for 4 hours! Is there any way to save it, or am I doomed to pork that will be too salty?
Thanks!
Jon
If you have done a high salt solution then yes indeed it may be too late for Mr. Pork; however if you did a lower salt solution then you maybe okay. Your best bet is to cut off a small piece of pork (do not salt it any further, of course) and then just cook it and try it to see if it tastes too salty. Hope this helps Jon - cheers!
Seven at night, crazy week and we remember that we have pork tenderloin in the fridge that has to be cooked tonight. Rouxbe! Found this recipe and sorry to say, did not brine the pork, it would be too late. It still came out moist and delicious, restaurant quality. The sauce was perfect, just the right touch of sweetness. We had a side of a quinoa salad. I really think that I am starting to get this cooking thing...lol.
I made this dish and it turned out beautifully. However, I brined the pork for 2 hours and when I tasted it alone, it was a bit salty. I will make a note to try 1 1/2 hours next time. Also, I'm not sure if I was supposed to reduce the sauce before thickening it? I did simmer it hard for almost 10 minutes before adding the cornstarch slurry. I ended up adding just as much again to make it more of a gravy type sauce. Whatever I did or didn't do well this time, the resulting dish still tasted wonderful!
Yes, you should reduce the sauce by about half (Step 3 from 1:25 to 1:30) before thickening it with the cornstarch. By reducing the sauce, you will concentrate the flavors. This is a pan sauce, so it is worth reviewing the lesson on How to Make a Pan Sauce. Once you understand these key steps in building a pan sauce, you won't have to question yourself when you tackle another recipe. Glad you enjoyed your dinner! Cheers!
I made this last night for dinner. The end result was good but the road getting there was a bit rocky. My tenderloins were quite big so they took quite sometime to brown. I had to deglaze several times as the sucs burned.
The sauce took quite awhile to reduce as well. I thought I was in for a complete failure but somehow it all came together right at the end.
It was quite salty though so next time I may only brine for about a hour. Plus I added salt to the tenderloins before browning so I will omit that step next time as well.
Just can't seem to keep my sucs from burning. Heat was at medium high to medium so I don't think it's heat control it's more the length of time I feel.
All in all another learning experience and a great dish!
Nice work, Keith! Keep on practicing and making tweaks to suit your tastes - it'll get easier and easier. Cheers!
This was delicious! I have never brined pork before but will from now on! It is just my husband and me so I cut the recipe in half and it worked well. Two questions: I had to use almost double the amount of cornstarch to thicken my sauce. Could this be attributed to the fact that I live at a high altitude (Denver)? My second question is that I forgot to buy fresh sage. I was going to try and substitute dried sage but after I finished and put the meal on the table, I realized I forgot to put in the dried sage!!! Can the dry be substituted for the fresh? Even without the sage it was awesome. Moist and delicious. Thanks Rouxbe!
Not sure that altitude plays a factor into the thickening of the cornstarch. My only guess is that you need to make sure the sauce comes to a boil so it activates the thickening power. If you didn't bring the heat high enough, it won't thicken to it's potential. In terms of dried vs. fresh sage, that is fine...it's usually 1 tsp dried = 3 tsp fresh (check out the Herbs lesson for more information). Hope this helps! Cheers!
I freeze my sage when I bring it in from the garden and do not thaw before use and this works for me if you were to buy it I am sure you could freeze what you do not use for another time. I do not throw anything away. This is a great recipe for pork as we are pork producers and any pork recipe is my favorite. My main thing is DO NOT OVERCOOK your pork for flavor and tenderness.
I love this cooking school.
Fern
I made this again for my husband and a dinner guest. This time I actually remembered to buy fresh sage. WOW! I thought it was good before but with the sage it was awesome!!! I also got the cornstarch mixture right this time. My husband and guest were thrilled with the dish. Another Rouxbe hit!!!!
I made this this weekend for my wife. Her general reaction to food that I
make is "It's good". That's it. She is more of a food for sustenance kind of person. I'm really trying to expand her palette as well as mine. So I scaled this down for one pork loin. Served it with fresh mashed potatoes and steamed baby carrots. Also I made a fresh sun dried tomato and basil bread to go with it. Wow. I got an "OMG honey this is awesome." The flavor of the fresh sage and granny smith apples really work together. I will def. be making this again. Thanks Rouxbe for the inspiration.
Great recipe with amazing flavor. I ran into trouble with browning the loin though. I just bought an all-clad frying pan and I brought it up to temperature using the water bead method. When I added the olive oil and then the butter, the butter browned and blackened almost immediately. I switched over to canola oil - recognizing I am probably sacrificing some flavor - which didn't burn as fast, but it was still a challenge to find the exact temperature where the loin browned on all four sides, and the sucs didn't burn. Was the water bead method too much heat for the butter?
When pan frying, it is best to use a fat with a high smoke point. Olive oil can smoke quickly and butter can burn easily. If the oil that you add starts to smoke, then your pan is too hot. Make sure to review the lesson on Pan Frying. Also, practice makes perfect so keep at it. Cheers!
This was so yummy...and so easy! We loved it! I scaled down the recipe for one pork roast rather than 3 and it was perfect for my aunt and I, with a plate of leftovers. Brining is TOTALLY worth it...this was the juiciest pork I've ever had. I served this with sauteed cabbage, onions & fennel, and a salad of mixed greens & cress. It was a lovely dinner! Thanks Rouxbe!
Hi Dawn,
I just tried this recipe and it turned out excellent! I did a minor modification to the sauce by adding 1 tbsp of brown sugar which I thought balanced the tartness of the green apples...
The brine made the meat very moist and extremely flavourful, the maple syrup in the brine was definitely the secret ingredient that gave it that extra depth of flavour.
I did have one problem though, once I pulled out the tenderloin, I did pat dry it, however, when I put into the pan to sear, a lot of moisture from the brine came up and there was a fair bit of steaming going on... Because of that, I didn't get a great sear as I normally would say on pork chops/chicken that wasn't brined...
Given that when you brine, you're soaking in water, how is it possible to get a good sear?? Do I have to physically squeeze excess water out like a towel? What am I missing here?
In either case, this was an excellent meal, the in-laws were impressed, great recipe and great technique to make it a memorable meal!
Thanks for any tips to address the above issue and it will be perfect!
It's hard to say exactly what went wrong but it sounds like perhaps maybe the meat was not pat dry well enough or perhaps your pan was not hot enough before you started searing the meat. See the lesson on "Searing" for more detail on this. Next time, maybe try air drying the pork for a couple of hours before cooking it. Or perhaps just try patting it drier. No need to squeeze the meat out like a towel though. This would only damage the meat.
You may also find it helpful to watch or review the lesson on "Brining", In particular, topic 8 - "After Brining | Preparing Meat for Cooking". Hope this helps. Glad you enjoyed your dinner. Cheers!
Didn't find any apple cider for the sauce, but I expected it to be an alcoholic drink anyway so, being in Belgium, I switched it for a Lindemans Apple beer. From the comments above it turns out the cider shouldn't be alcoholic so apple juice would have been a more natural choice, but no matter. It tasted delicious. Just added a teaspoon of sugar to the sauce to counter the beer's slight tartness, otherwise everything was the same.
The meat itself was divine. Brining is an amazing technique, one of my favourite things I've learned from Rouxbe.
Hi Rouxbe,
After several years of membership, I'm encouraging myself to really learn the techniques in your recipes. I do have a couple of questions.
1) Removing the silver skin was a little trickier than you made it appear. My tenderloin seemed to have more white strands in various places around the meat (which looked more like marbling), while yours was clearly the silver skin you were referring to. I am curious how you know when you are removing the silver skin and when you are removing fat.
2) My jus was also much lighter in color. I did use store bought low sodium Pacific chicken stock. I'm guessing that this is because I didn't make a dark stock. How much additional flavor am I losing here because my jus was lighter? Does browning the onions for longer result in a darker sauce, too?
3) I also had to use about three times the corn starch to get my sauce to thicken. It was wonderful, but just wanted to check in to see if that was normal.
I love cooking, everyone loved the dish. I know that there are little tweaks and changes that I can make along the way to improve in my cooking, and I'm interested in how to improve this dish even more so it becomes better and better.
Thanks Rouxbe!
Brooke
First off let me say congratulations on a job well done. Now lets see if I can't answer your questions.
1) Removing the silver skin should generally not be that difficult. But it will get easier with practice. It sounds like perhaps you were trimming off more than the silver skin. Silver skin is that tough white, opaque connective tissue around the meat. Basically, it is the fascia around the muscle.
2) The jus that you made was likely darker due to the fact that you may have had less sucs and/or you used a lighter stock. Darker stock = darker sauce.
As for how much flavor you are loosing because you had a lighter stock and used a store-bought stock — for those that make their own stock they would say you are missing "a lot" of flavor. But you would have to do a comparison and see for yourself. The best way to really know the power of a good stock is to make your own and then compare it to your regular store-bought stock. Lets just say that I could drink a cup of homemade stock, but I can't say the same for most store-bought stocks.
Browning the onions can lead to more color but you just have to be careful you don't burn them as this will impart an bitter taste into the sauce.
3) Again, it's the store-bought stock. I lacks the gelatin that homemade stock contains (due to the fat and connective tissue). For more information on this be sure to watch the lesson on "How to Make a Pan Sauce".
Keep up the great work and the practicing Brooke. Hope that helps. Cheers!
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