Mojo Pork Tenderloin, Eggplant Fries, Butter Chicken Meatballs, Black Eyed Pea Dal, Bang Bang Salmon & Always More Pizza!
We’ve got some big, bold flavors in this What’s Cooking round up with a bright mojo pork tenderloin with Cuban black beans, eggplant fries and chipotle dip, butter chicken/tikka masala meatballs with pumpkin in the sauce, along with black eyed pea dal, bang bang salmon and veggies with a lemon basil mint vinaigrette, plus lots more pizzas with fun topping combination and burger bowls!
Mojo Pork Tenderloin with Baked Eggplant Fries & Roasted Squash
We almost never eat pork tenderloin because we’re always eating the “scratch and dent” inventory or the things slowest to sell and tenderloin is of course limited and in high demand and as a boneless cut, it’s unlikely to have vacuum seal fail issues.
This one was just missing it’s label. The butcher either forgot or it fell off or who knows. I had a millisecond of annoyance and then decided that when life gives unlabeled pork tenderloin, make Mojo Pork!
This bad boy was large, from one of our retired breeders. I wanted citrusy Cuban Mojo vibes to go with black beans (below). When I went to make it though, I didn’t have an orange, but plenty of lemons and limes and I didn’t want to make a special trip to the store just for an orange, so I improvised the recipe, adding extra lemon and lime juice and some jalapeño fermented honey to take the place of the slight sweetness from the orange.
This also may sound weird and not at all traditional, but I had taken some homemade pesto of the freezer for pizzas that ended up being mustard green and arugula pesto and not basil pesto and it wasn’t what I was going for for pizza. But because it has lots of garlic and a brightness to it, I thought it could work well with the citrus, honey, dijon mustard, chili lime seasoning, coriander, cumin, garlic powder and oregano and it really did!
I let the pork set up in the marinade for a few hours while I finished the Instant Pot black beans and breaded some eggplant fries. Every time I make eggplant fries, I am reminded how much work it is, but also how worth it they always are. With appropriate seasoning and good dip (like this greek yogurt chipotle combo), they go well with so many cuisines, not just Italian meals dipped in red sauce!
With the every abundant summer sauce, I also sliced those and baked them, too.
I roasted the pork tenderloin in the oven at 400 degrees for about 30 minutes since it was so large. I don’t remember the exact time frame, but I did use a meat thermometer to check boneless (145 degrees in this case). It’s also important to let a cut like this rest properly before sliced so the juices don’t all run out.
It came out absolutely delicious! And I didn’t take pictures of the leftovers, but part of the plan for making it was Cuban sandwiches. I did one round on thin sliced ciabatta bread with Swiss cheese, mustard and homemade honey mustard fermented pickles and another on a crisped up tortilla. Both were so good!
Instant Pot Cuban Style Black Beans
With the pork, I made a big batch of Cuban-inspired black beans. I soaked the beans for a little over a day with a splash of apple cider vinegar, then drained and rinsed well. Then I sautéed some onions and garlic in the Instant Pot, adding tomato paste and diced lunch box peppers, then seasoned with coriander and cumin, fresh oregano and some bay leaves. As I alway do for beans, I added a few pieces of kombu seaweed to help break down the raffinose (sugars) and make them more digestible.
The beans cooked on high pressure for an hour and then I switched to the sauté setting to cook off some more of the liquid, stirring frequently so they didn’t stick to the bottom and burn.
They came out lovely, but almost a little too sweet from the peppers and the tomato paste! I finished with lots of lime juice. The beans were great with the Mojo pork, squash and eggplant fries and since I used the leftover pork for sandwiches, the beans went well with eggs for breakfast instead!
Butter Chicken Meatballs with Black Eyed Pea Dal & Black Rice
All of these dishes turned into a whole use-up-the-freezer-ingredients meal!
First I made another batch of bone broth with frozen chicken feet and cooked turkey and pork bones. I really like the combination of frozen bones and feet for all then collagen and gelatin and cooked bones for depth of flavor. All I add when making broth is a splash of vinegar and plenty of sea salt. This batched cooked for 2.5 hours on high pressure in the Instant Pot.
Next I made a dal with soaked black eyed peas. The freshly made broth served as the liquid and I added kombu, of course, then seasoned with sea salt, chili flakes and turmeric and cooked on high pressure for an hour. Once the peas were cooked, I added in a bunch of frozen kale leaves (I had defrosted the bag for a kale artichoke pizza the day before and only used a small portion of it). On a whim, I added some of the mustard pesto, figuring it would add some more nutrients and kind of disappear into the stronger flavors. It did!
Some of the strong flavors also came from a tempering oil added at the end. This one was coriander, cumin and fennel seeds, along with dried red chilis toasted on the stove top in avocado oil. I added the oil to the simmering peas and greens, along with a lot of lime juice. They came out creamy and delicious and loaded with nutrients from the peas, broth and veggies!
Next up was some butter chicken meatballs (also known as Tikka Masala). It’s getting close to peak winter squash and pumpkin season, so I gotta use up the roasted and pureed squash in my freezer! And I’ve always found that pumpkin goes so well with creamy tomato sauces and Indian spices especially.
I did my normal chicken meatball recipe with two pounds of ground chicken, homemade breadcrumbs, eggs, salt, garlic and onion powders and this time added ground coriander, cumin, chili flakes and garam masala. I managed to fit them all in my large cast iron pan and started them on the stove and then transferred to the oven to finish.
The sauce started with sautéed onions, garlic and ginger, all the same spices as the beans and meatballs and then I added in the pumpkin puree and frozen tomatoes from earlier in the season.
It all came together with a batch of black rice I had made a day or two before for some other leftovers, along with fresh cucumbers, more lime juice and green onion microgreens sprinkled on top. And like lots of my cooking, it was intended to serve well as meal prep and leftovers and did it ever!
Bang Bang Salmon with Cucumber Avocado Salad & Lemon Basil Mint Vinaigrette
I’ve made this recipe before and taken the method with mayo with other flavor profiles and it’s just so good.
Pinch of Yum is the inspiration here for the salmon and I don’t have much to add, other than that I cook it in my toaster oven!
We ate it with basmati rice, the last of our homegrown green beans before the plants succumbed to summer fungal issues and withered in the heat (and I planted more that are much happier!).
I also continue to have tons of Italian and Lemon basil, as well as apple mint in my garden, so I did a version of this basil vinaigrette from What’s Gaby Cooking with a little of each of those, red onion instead of shallot, a dash of honey and lemon juice instead of vinegar. I tossed the cucumbers and avocados with the vinaigrette and the combination of the spicy, cream salmon, rice, steamed beans and the bright, punchy salad was perfect.
Always Another Pizza Party
We finally had some pals over who hadn’t been to our new house yet and we had to do it up with a Sunday lunch time pizza party spread!
I love Bellegarde dough when I don’t have as much time to prep in advance, but I also love the process of making dough and watching it rise and do its thing when I do have time! Barton Springs stone-milled flour makes it extra delicious, too.
I’ve been combining elements of a few different recipes and the longer I can cold ferment it in the fridge the better.
This batch ultimately made eight pizzas — six for the party and two later in the week. As good as the dough was after just 36 hours, the leftover dough at the end of the week was even better!
Before pizzas, we snacked on some of my favorite go to appetizers — truffle black garlic deviled eggs, smoked fish dip, Nur’s kitchen hummus, sliced baguettes and cucumbers, hakurei turnips and lunch box peppers to dip with and our friends brought Southern Maids whipped feta and Rose Wagon Ranch blueberry pepper jelly, too!
For the toppings there was:
A classic pepperoni pizza for the kids.
A buffalo chicken pizza with buffalo sauce, red onions, chicken chicken thighs and mozzarella, provolone and blue cheeses.
A brat pizza with a creamy mustard sauce, caramelized onions, sliced brats and mozzarella and gouda cheeses.
A chicken & pepper pizza with creamy roasted red pepper sauce, sweet peppers, mozzarella, provolone and gouda cheeses and topped with basil (this was supposed to be the pesto one, but pivoted since it was mustard green pesto!)
A kale & artichoke pizza with marinated kale, artichokes, lemon zest, olive oil and mozzarella and goat cheeses.
And finally a fun potato, bacon and egg pizza with caramelized onions, sliced roasted potatoes, bacon, mozzarella and blue cheeses and a raw egg cooked right on the pizza!
They were all so good, but my personal favorites from this round were the buffalo chicken and the brat pizza!
Burger Bowls and Use Up the Dough Pizzas!
We love a big pizza party production and sort of can’t help ourselves from making 5-6 pizzas at once when we have guests over. They just take about 90 seconds to cook, so why not? And the leftovers are great, too.
But there’s also something about throwing two pizzas together for the two of us at the end of a week that is super satisfying, too! The pizza oven is versatile for one or two pizzas or a rapid succession of them!
And one pizza I have often experimented with for us but have yet to do for guests is this cheeseburger pizza topped with pickles or pickle relish or both. The sauce is a mayo-ketchup-mustard based burger sauce, you can put seasoned but raw ground beef right on there, along with onions, tomatoes if you have them (we didn’t this time), mozzarella and cheddar and/or blue cheeses and then top with arugula or even lettuce and of course the pickles.
Because the raw meat releases some juices as it cooks, we’ve found it helps to cook this pizza first if you’re doing another one as well, slice it and put it in the regular oven on a pizza stone at 275-300 degrees. The juices drip down and cook off in a short time and then it comes out perfectly once the other pizza is done!
We used the rest of the pepperoni our friends brought for the other pizza, with tomato paste, fresh mozzarella and provolone and elevated it with Calabrian chili and basil. With a hefty salad, it was a perfect Saturday night meal.
With the rest of the one pound pack of ground beef, the next night we made burger bowls with roasted crinkle cut potatoes, lots of arugula, kraut, pickle relish and topped them off with fried eggs. I love a burger with a good bun, but sometimes you can pack even more tasty elements into a bowl!