You know I had to make this. Pork. Bacon. Blueberries. What's not to like? And with the fresh local blueberries on their last legs (I bought a bunch from the Farmers Market a few weeks ago as I knew it was their last hurrah of the season) this was the recipe to try.
I found this on Pinterest but it actually comes from one of my favorite food bloggers, Noble Pig. I swear sometimes she just posts recipes that are directed entirely at me. This was actually quite yummy. I thought the sauce might be too sweet with the blueberries and brown sugar, but it wasn't at all. As Noble Pig mentions, this sauce is both sweet and savory and is a great combination with the pork.
I did mess up the recipe a bit. I completely forgot to baste the pork with the sauce during the last five minutes of the cooking time as we were having trouble with our meat thermometer and the pork hit temp in the blink of an eye. This required having to take the pan out, put in a different thermometer, having that not work, putting the pork back in, setting the broken thermometer to a ridiculous temp of about 170 (that's how much our meter was off) and then going through the process again...so yes, time to get a new meat thermometer. If you check out Noble Pigs photos you can see the nice sauce crusted pork which made for a wonderful presentation. I can say that the dish tasted pretty dang good even though I missed this step.
You can find the recipe on Noble Pigs site here:
PORK TENDERLOIN WITH BLUEBERRY-BACON BARBECUE SAUCE
(Noble Pig)
Main ingredients you'll need:
bacon
shallots
jalapeno
blueberries
brown sugar
balsamic vinegar
dijon stone ground mustard
garlic powder
lemon juice
pork tenderloin
NOTE: I didn't have any thick bacon so I used regular Oscar Meyer....and because it wasn't thick I used six slices instead of 3. The horror.
NOTE: I
used a cast iron skilled to both sear and cook the pork in the oven.
The two pieces of pork were way to big to originally fit in the skillet
but once the meat was seared on all sides, it fit into the skillet just fine.
NOTE: Mr.
L made it a point to remind me that if the skillet handle was black (ie
the cast iron pan) I was NOT allowed to touch the handle without big
fat oven mitts (ahem, I still think he has nightmares from the last time I picked up the just out of the hot oven cast iron skillet handle with my bare hand).
NOTE: I used the blender to mix this (be
sure to leave the little vent thing in the top open because the sauce was hot and you don't want it to explode)
We probably used way more sauce than required on each serving of pork but who can blame us. The sauce reheated very well by the way and made an excellent lunch the next day with some leftover pork. Would definately make again.
When I use a skillet like that, I have a crappy oven mitt that I stick over the handle so I won't absent mindedly grab the handle in the first 5 minutes after it comes out of the oven. I have to try that sauce.
Posted by: Chris | July 22, 2013 at 07:56 AM
Chris - I too have an oven mitt for that...but do I remember to even use it? LOL!
Posted by: Mrs. L | July 22, 2013 at 12:10 PM