Main Course

Pork Tenderloin with a JOLT



The assignment of coffee for September was going to be interesting for me. I don't like the taste of and, therefore, don't drink coffee. I love the smell of it brewing but that's as far as my like of coffee goes. That being the case, I needed to figure out what to do. I went on a mission to see what I could do with coffee that would satisfy me and hopefully satisfy my taste buds. I knew about adding coffee to chocolate to enhance its flavor, but I didn't want to make a dessert since I had made one last month. With my research, I learned cooks were now using coffee in dry rubs and marinades for meat. That idea intrigued me and I decided that was my route - a dry rub for pork tenderloin. I found that most anything was put with the coffee to make a rub, so I was good to go with anything I wanted. I also decided that the pork needed a sauce. That would be an apricot sauce since I LOVE apricots. Jim suggested couscous with coffee being the liquid. I was up for that as well. Here is what I prepared and then my critique:



Port Tenderloin with a JOLT

A 1 to 2 pound pork tenderloin

1/4 cup instant coffee
1 TBSP Hungarian hot paprika
1 TBSP brown sugar
1 TBSP chopped fresh parsley
3/4 TBSP chopped fresh oregano
1/8 tsp Vietnamese cinnamon
1 tsp salt
1/8 tsp freshly ground black pepper



Mix above ingredients and let sit for several hours. Rub entire pork tenderloin with marinade and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 8 hours. Sear on a hot grill. Place meat on the cool side of the grill and continue cooking on indirect heat for 15-20 minutes, turning once. Let rest for 5 minutes. Slice and serve with apricot sauce.



Apricot Sauce
1 - 12 ounce can Solo Apricot filling used for pastries, caskes and desserts
chopped, dried apricots (as much or as little as you would like)
salt - a dash to cut the sweetness a little
water to thin

Heat above ingredients. Place some on a platter, place sliced meat on sauce and drizzle additional sauce over meat.



Couscous
1 cup brewed coffee
3/4 cup whole grain couscous
chopped, fresh mint
toasted, slivered almonds



Bring coffee to a boil. Add couscous. Let sit 5 minutes. Stir with a fork. Add mint and almonds. Stir. Serve with additional fresh mint leaves.



Critique: The meat was incredibly tender and juicy. Due to the amount of instant coffee that was used, Jim thinks it would be good to cut back on the amount of coffee and use decaf. I never thought of the fact it was "high test" instant - which is why we called the recipe "Pork Tenderloin with a JOLT". The instant was concentrated and there was a bit too much used. You definitely needed the apricot sauce to cut the intensity of the rub. The couscous was wonderful. No changes with that at all. Anything else in the couscous would have been too much due to, again, the intensity of the rub on the meat. All in all, everything went together very well. The entire meal was well balanced in flavors. I will tweak the rub a bit with the coffee and go for it again.

Smack Yo Mama Chili

When I saw coffee as our ingredient I immediately did NOT want to make a drink and started thinking about a savory dish with coffee as an ingredient. Two things popped into my head right away - mole and chili. I'm glad I decided to focus on chili since Scotts and Pans worked on mole.

Ingredients:

1 lb. lean ground beef

1 lb. hot sausage

1 can crushed tomatoes

1 can HOT RoTel (diced tomatoes with habenero pepper)

1 sweet onion, chopped

1 can black beans, rinsed and drained

1 TBS. Hot Mexican chili powder

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. oregano

1 clove garlic, sliced (or pressed for a stronger garlic flavor)

1 bay leaf

1 cup strong coffee

1 bottle dark beer (I used a brown ale)

salt to taste

For ease of clean up, I decided to use the crock pot for the simmering. I browned the beef and put it in the crock-pot with the tomatoes, Rotel, and beans. I browned the sausage and added the onion part way through the browning. I allowed lots of dark brown bits on my sausage to add flavor and the onions soaked up all the fat, so there was no draining involved. I added this to the

crock pot with the spices, beer and coffee. I made the coffee double strength.

My house smelled delicious as it was simmering away and I couldn't help but try it a few times while all the flavors were melding together. I initially thought that I had put too much cinnamon in, but after four hours of the flavors marrying, the cinnamon was a nice compliment rather than the offense I had previously thought. Next time I make it (because there will certainly be a next time - this was delicious!) I'll add a bit more oregano. I found I couldn't taste it at all and would like it have the chance to compliment the other flavors a bit more.

I decided at the 11th hour to make a corn bread to go with it and I'm glad I did. While not overly spicy, the chili has a nice kick to it. The corn bread and dollop of sour cream cooled it nicely. All in all, a great hit that I'll be making again and again and again. I'm already looking forward left overs at tomorrow's lunch.

Coffee-brined chicken w/ a coffee mole sauce

So September's recipe was a deep drive down the left-field line that. just. curved. foul. Not a home run, but pretty close. Another swing with better timing and we have a winner.

I used coffee two ways in this recipe- in a brine for chicken, and as part of a mole sauce. The chicken was served with black beans and grilled corn. Here's how:

Chicken and brine:

1 cup brewed coffee

1/4 cup salt

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 tsp coriander

1 tsp peppercorns

3 cups water

1 orange

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

Mole:

1 14 oz. can stewed tomatoes

1 tbsp adobo sauce from a can of chipotles

1 square dark chocolate

1/2 cup brewed coffee

1 tsp minced garlic (or one clove, smashed, if you have it)

1 can black beans (not rinsed. I'm a dummy.)

4 ears of corn

I mixed the dry brining ingredients all together with hot coffee until everything was dissolved, and then added the water. The most fun part of this dish, and any dish that calls for it, is using the mortar and pestle to mash up the coriander and peppercorns. Wicked cool. Four slices of orange and the brine went into a big bowl with the chicken very early in the morning- I also added the juice from the rest of the orange (why waste it, right?). Pete was awake, so I was awake too. C'est la vie. Periodically during the day, I turned the chicken to make sure it all got brined properly. As I've never brined anything before, I don't know that this was necessary, but it made sense.

Dinner time was about 6:30 or so, and the Cavanaughs were coming over, so this had to be special. At about 5:00 I started on the mole sauce, blending the tomatoes, coffee, adobo and garlic.

Let's take a timeout here. Is there a good way to buy a small amount of adobo sauce so it's not wasteful? I know it's only like a four ounce can, but I only used one tbsp, so the rest goes to the fridge with the hope that we use it for something else. Of course we don't. So if you have any suggestions on a better way to do this, please post in the comments section at the end.

Ok. Time in.

So it's now about 5:15 and the mole is blended but not cooked yet. As you can imagine, it's a bit watery at this point, and needs to thicken. I've got about an hour until the Cavs come over, so I start simmering it to reduce now, which was a good idea in theory. I also added the chocolate when I put it on the burner. Big mistake. Huge. Why? Chocolate melts quickly, and then burns. This is the reason the dish wasn't a Great Success, but instead just outside the foul pole. Oops!

Anyway, over the course of the next hour it simmers to reduce, but twice I add more chocolate to cover up the slightly burnt taste of the original chocolate. I also shuck the corn and boil it for about five minutes- I love the taste of grilled corn, but cooking it all the way on the grill takes way too long. Par-boiling is the way to go.

Doorbell rings, guests are here. Chicken goes on the grill, black beans (not rinsed. I'm a dummy.) go into the pot with the mole, corn goes on the grill. Dinner is served.

The results:

The chicken was awesome. Really really great. We didn't eat it all, and it made great leftovers for the next few days. It never dried out, which is good considering it was frozen when I started, and chicken loses a lot of water during the thawing process. The coffee taste was faint, so maybe I'll use either stronger coffee or more of it next time. But the big winners here were the orange and coriander. Any time I brine something (Thanksgiving is coming up!), I'm using orange and coriander. Oh man was it good.

The black beans in mole was good. Could've been great. Coffee wasn't the star here, either- it really was the chocolate. The downside was that some of the chocolate was burned, and the mixture was REALLY salty, because I didn't rinse the black beans. I'm a dummy. With some more forethought, I would just buy dry beans and soak them overnight, but this recipe was thrown together with a mid-day trip to the grocery store, so that wasn't possible.

I'll try this again later this month and do it right, so look for more results later. I really think this could be a winner if I just think through everything. Maybe sauteed greens instead of corn as it's getting colder, we'll see.

Comments?

September: Coffee

Wake me up when September ends? No! Stay awake the whole month on a caffeine buzz! This month's ingredient is coffee, inspired by the absolutely terrible coffee available here in San Jose, CA. I'm out here for work, and the most prevalent option where I am is Peet's, which is just awful. Too strong, too bitter, it tastes burned. There has to be a better way, which I leave up to you to create a recipe. Enjoy!