There are not many foods I don't like. Put most anything in front of me and I'll try it, if not like it. I'm not as adventurous as Andrew Zimmern - and I won't eat most of the things he eats, but give me something in the "normal" range and it'll do. Mostly.
One of my big dislikes is pork. Now I don't mean processed, cured pork. I mean, who can not like bacon or ham. I mean pork chops. Or roast. Or tenderloin. But only when it really tastes, well, porky. So if you disguise it with enough flavors, I'll eat it. And maybe even enjoy it (posting soon ... Travis' favorite carnitas ... om nom nom)
Unfortunately (fortunately?) my family does like pork so once in a while I'll give in and make it for them. I like using the tenderloin because it's lean and usually cooks up pretty quickly (and about a quarter of the time it's a recipe that I'll eat too). Last night I tried for Asian fusion with a tenderloin roasted and served with coconut rice (packaged), roasted broccoli and a mango salsa. I almost roasted a chicken breast along side the pork but decided since I'm not a restaurant, I'm only cooking one thing.
How did it come out? Well, I still don't like pork. And while I ate it, I smothered it with the mango salsa so all I really tasted was the salsa. And boy, the salsa was really, really good. The pork, not-so-much.
The salsa recipe I used comes from Food Network and Ellie Krieger (recipe here). Every time I use one of her recipes I think of my mom and last night was no exception. My mom lived in Costa Rica and used to come visit us often. (She passed away tragically from ovarian cancer last February - what an awful awful disease - all cancer is.) Anyway, on one of her trips to see us she sat on the plane next to Ellie Krieger's father. She said they talked the whole trip out to us and he showed her photos of Ellie and her family and said how proud he was of her. In parting he said he would get Ellie to sign one of her cookbooks for her and he'd send it to the house. Really my mom thought nothing of it afterwards but about a week later, her book The Food You Crave arrived via UPS - signed and a short note from Ellie's father. It really made me feel good knowing there are still nice people in the world - and it really made my mom's day. I now have that cookbook and it still makes me smile every time I pick it up.
The pork I dry rubbed (garlic powder, brown sugar, powdered ginger, salt) and then roasted at 400. After about a 20 minutes I added broccoli around the outer edges and then finished cooking it for another 25 minutes or so. At the end I brushed on a new product I found last week in the grocery store - Annie Chuns Gochujang sauce. Gochujang sauce is a Korean sweet and spicy sauce - the "go to" sauce in Korea. It reminds me of Thai sweet chili sauce but with a slightly spicier, smokier flavor.
I think my favorite part, however, had to be the cucumber in the mango salsa. It added a nice textural crunch to it. All in all a success and everyone (except me) even enjoyed the pork.
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