Pork tenderloin with mushrooms

I know, the pork tenderloin doesn’t look all that good in the photo. But you don’t judge people by their photos, do you? Right? You don’t? Really? So why would you judge a pork tenderloin by its photo? Exactly!

This dish actually had two lives. I made it yesterday evening, or maybe it was already night by then. In its first life it was deprived of almost all its mushrooms. I had to check whether they’d turned out well and I think they turned out a little too well. I barely had any to eat today (well, maybe 5 little pieces). That was its second life. Yesterday I was making it for today. You can do that, and it doesn’t seem to do the next day’s meal any harm.

I like pork tenderloin. It’s quite an agreeable cut to cook with. Hard to mess up, too. I fancied making it in a good sauce, and since I’d bought some mushrooms the day before (actually to fry on their own for a classic Polish zapiekanka toastie), those flavours somehow clicked for me. Add a little red wine and you’ve got an exceptionally simple recipe.

Admittedly, frying and braising the meat takes a while, but you can easily get on with something else in the meantime. A simple, primitive and very tasty dish. I was going to serve it to myself with rice and sweet braised carrots, but in the end I settled for just the carrots. I recommend it.

At a glance:

Prep time: 15 minutes

Braising time: 3 hours

Serves: one person, though of course you can use more ingredients and feed more people

How many calories? Frankly, today I couldn’t care less

Ingredients for a really good pork tenderloin in sauce:

• One medium pork tenderloin
• 8 large button mushrooms
• a glass of dry red wine
• 1 medium onion
• 1 large spring onion
• 2 garlic cloves
• 3 tablespoons of 12% fat cream for sauces
• mixed peppercorns (whole, that is)
• ground black pepper
• salt
• olive oil

The recipe (this will take a while):

First I washed the tenderloin thoroughly (never, ever forget to wash the meat you buy) and rubbed it with a little salt and ground black pepper. I put it in a plastic container, added a little olive oil, the finely chopped onion and the roughly chopped spring onion and garlic. I put the lid on and gave it a good shake to mix everything up. Into the fridge for 30 minutes.

Then I heated some olive oil in a frying pan and tipped in the entire contents of the container (the onions as well as the meat). I pressed the meat down lightly so it would get a nice seared crust. After about 5 minutes I poured in 1/3 of a glass of wine and added a small handful of mixed peppercorns (I squeeze them in my hands first to crush some of them). When nearly all the wine had evaporated, I added the roughly chopped mushrooms to the pan. They should release some of their juices.

Once all the water has evaporated and there’s only oil left in the pan, I fry everything for a little longer, making sure it doesn’t burn. After a few minutes I pour in the rest of the wine. I turn down the heat (on my scale of 1–10, down to 3) and cover the pan with a lid. Now the tenderloin gets to braise. For quite a while: over 2 hours in my case. During that time the onion all but disappears into a lovely sauce and the mushrooms should shrink quite a bit.

After 2 hours, when there’s a lovely onion and wine sauce in the pan and the mushrooms taste good when I try them, I add 3 tablespoons of cream (first I put the cream in a bowl and take 3 tablespoons of sauce from the pan to mix into it before pouring it all back in). I stir the sauce in the pan thoroughly (the pork is still in there too) and keep heating it gently. The sauce needs to thicken. Once it’s just the right consistency, the dish is ready. Enjoy!