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Juicy pork tenderloin, brined in apple cider and finished in a clay cooker with accompanying squash and lentils, by Dave Utrata.

Apples. Photo: Jason NelsonThis pork tenderloin recipe looks busy, but after a series of simple steps, you’ll have a juicy cut of meat served easily on a bed of the tasty side dish prepared in a clay cooker.  This dish has a striking visual appeal!  It also captures the nicely harmonic tastes of the autumn season, apples and acorn squash.  Be sure to read the preparation steps ahead of time and plan accordingly.  This is possibly not a dish that lends itself to after work rush cooking, but it’s really not that complex. 

 

Ingredients

1 lb. pork tenderloin

Apple cider, about 1 quart

½ cup Kosher salt

1 cup lentils

1 medium yellow onion, sliced thinly

¼ stick butter

3-5 cloves of garlic, (to taste)

1 tsp dried thyme

1 tsp dried savory leaf

1 cup vegetable broth

1 acorn squash, sliced into ¼” to ½” thick half-rings with seeds and membrane removed

½ cup brown sugar

1 tsp hot ground pepper (or to taste)

 

Directions

Begin by soaking the lentils in water overnight.  This presoak assumes you use dried lentils, as I did.  Drain and rinse the lentils and set aside.

The day of the meal, brine the pork tenderloin in the apple cider and salt.   Use enough cider to cover the tenderloin in a stainless steel pot, adding the salt first and mixing.  I got good results by brining for 4 hours; you may adjust the brining time for longer, but that time is about the minimum.

About two hours before dinner time, melt the butter in a large pan under medium heat.  Add the onion and garlic and slowly cook, allowing the onion to caramelize.  This should take about 45 minutes or so; don’t rush it, this will be worth it. 

Add the dried herbs after this, add the lentils and broth.  Allow this mixture to boil then simmer for 10 minutes.  Set aside, cool a bit and then spoon this into the base of a clay cooker.  (I assume you know to soak your clay cooker’s top in water for the recommended period of time; the base of mine is glazed and doesn’t require soaking.)

Remove the pork from the brine, rinse and pat dry.  In the now empty pan, lightly brown all sides of the tenderloin.  Set this on the bed of onions and lentils in the cooker bottom.  Settle the half rings of acorn squash across the tenderloin.  Leave enough space between the rings to let the tenderloin show.

Place the top on the clay cooker, put into a cold oven and set to 375^oF.   Cook for about 40 minutes.  At that point, carefully remove the top from the cooker and baste the squash rings and tenderloin in a glaze made from the brown sugar, cider and hot pepper.  Cook uncovered for 15 more minutes.

For serving, gently move the acorn squash rings to one side.  Spoon some of the onions and lentils on a plate and then slice out the desired serving of tenderloin.  Top with a ring or two of squash; they’re probably going to be fragile, but the skin will hold them together.

 

This dish was really enjoyable to make for so many reasons: it only looks busy, trust me on that one, and it was ultimately just a one pot dish.  It also allowed me to use the only real harvest that came out of my garden this year, the acorn squash.  My only regret is that I didn’t use a good camera to take a photo; my camera phone didn’t do this dish justice, it looked so good!