Rosemary and Mustard Pork Loin with Baby Artichokes, Shallots and Vermouth Jus from Bon Appetit Magazine, April 2010

Somewhere in my blogging I've mentioned before that every food magazine feels the requirement to put in a pork loin recipe. It's a good thing that our family likes pork quite a bit and that it usually easy to find it for a good price considering how often I end up making it.

What also gets a chuckle out of me is when the title of a recipe lists just about all the ingredients of the dish. There are twelve ingredients in this dish and five of them are in the title (Rosemary and Mustard Pork Loin with Baby Artichokes, Shallots, and Vermouth Jus). You have to admit, that's pretty funny. Maybe it's just been a long day.

This pork roast recipe starts with a paste made from lemon zest, garlic, rosemary, salt and pepper. I never have good luck when I'm supposed to make a paste with rosemary unless I attack it like a fiend on the cutting board before adding it to my mini-processor. I love using fresh herbs, but every time I use rosemary I feel as though I'm adding pine needles to my dish. 

Anyhow, the paste is finished off with mustard and then the mess is slathered on the pork, left to marinate for a little while then put in a very hot oven. After 20 minutes, the mixture of shallots, artichokes and garlic cloves are thrown in and the temperature is lowered. At least that's what's supposed to happen. When I added the vegetables and the little bit of water from the artichokes hit the hot stoneware baking dish, I heard a heart sickening cracking sound. The dish made it through the rest of the process after I wrapped the bottom in foil, but I'll have to throw it out. I am very sad about that.

Because of my baking dish issue, I had to transfer the meat and vegetables to their proper places and then put the juice that had collected in a skillet instead of leaving it on the stove in the same pan. Even so, the vermouth got added and reduced and then the chicken broth. The only difference between my cooking and the magazines is that it took a lot longer than three minutes to reduce a cup and a quarter of liquid down to a half cup. I don't know where they come up with the times for reducing liquids but unless it gets to a roiling boil, which doesn't usually happen at medium-high heat, there's no way it'll reduce that much in three minutes.

All that to say, the meal got on the table a little later than the time allotted and as a result the meat and vegetables were cold. Even if it had been hot, this pork loin didn't get embraced by our family with any enthusiasm. The crust was ok but lacked flavor (I think it needed more salt). It didn't penetrate into the meat at all, which tasted very bland. The vermouth jus helped a lot and tasted very good. It was the best part of the dish in my book. 

I was totally confused as to why we were asked to waste 10 cloves of garlic by putting them in the pan unpeeled. They roasted up fine, but then no one wanted to do anything with them because they were greasy and covered in juice. I think it would make no difference if they were left out or just a few peeled cloves were thrown in instead of 10 unpeeled cloves.

What's funny to me about this piece is that I totally forgot to mention anything about the artichokes. My family has been a big fan of steamed artichokes with a vinaigrette sauce ever since I was child. We loved peeling off the leaves, dipping them in the sauce and scraping every bit of goodness off them that we could. As a result, it's VERY hard for me to deconstruct an artichoke, baby or otherwise, and lose any of the meat through trimming. Because it's done with baby artichokes, there's no pain involved with the leaves, thank goodness, but this step was not one I enjoyed.

This was going to be my last recipe from this issue of Bon Appetit but I don't want to end on a negative note, so I guess I will make the New York-Style Crumb Cake after all (oh darn).