This is a great meat to do for a dinner party, it doesn’t take long to cook and you can prep it in advance. On the evening itself stick it in the oven for about an hour and your done. Minimal fuss, maximum taste. The sage and onion stuffing goes really well with it and I love the taste of the two pig meats. Pancetta is one of my favorite things! It’s slices of belly pork and has the most amazing flavor. For this recipe you’ll need:
1 pork tenderloin
12 slices pancetta, approx
2 medium onions, peeled and finely diced
200g breadcrumbs
2 tbsp dried sage leaves
20g butter
1 tbsp flavourless oil
If your making this in advance you’ll need to make your stuffing and allow it to cool completely before stuffing the pork. So to make the stuffing you’ll need to melt the butter with the oil in a non-stick pan. Add the onions with the dried sage and a generous pinch of salt and pepper. You’ll need to sweat the onions so they become nice and soft but you don’t want them to take on too much color and you want to keep a lot of the liquid that comes off the onions.
To do this cut a square of parchment paper and fold in half, then fold in quarters. Do this two more times until the center becomes a point. Place the point roughly at the center point of your saucepan (maybe do this before you start) and trim the wide edge of the parchment. When you open it out you should have a rough circle. Place this over the onions for about 10 minutes. Do keep a little eye on them, you should have them on a medium heat.
After about 10 minutes remove from the heat and add the breadcrumbs and stir well to combine. The mixture shouldn’t be too wet, this is a dry stuffing. It will take on a of juice from the meat and if it becomes too “wet” it will just comes out of the meat as you cook it. Allow to cool completely.
To stuff your pork place a large piece of tinfoil on your kitchen counter. Lay the pancetta in a row, each piece touching the next, on the tin foil. You’ll need to cut your pork fillet so it lays flat on the pancetta. To do this make an incision with a sharp knife about one third of the way from the top of the fillet and cut all the way along, almost all of the way through the fillet. Lay this piece open once you’ve cut it and do the same through the middle section. Think of it kinda of like an envelope opening fully.
Once the pork if cut open may it on top of the pancetta and place the stuffing along the middle. Use the pancetta to close over the meat so the stuffing is in the middle. Writing this now I realize it would have been useful to photograph this process (note to self: take more pics). I used toothpicks to help hold the pancetta around the pork, just poke them in wherever you think the meat needs help staying together. Bring the tin foil up around the meat and fold the edges over to close it.
When your ready to cook the pork preheat the oven to 180 and place the meat on a roasting tray . After 30 minutes open the tin foil completely and put back in the oven for another 30 minutes. Keep an eye that the pancetta doesn’t burn! You’ll know it’s done when the meat has turned pale although the pancetta may stain the pork a pinkish color in places so try a couple of sections. You’ll know it’s the pancetta colouring it pink rather than it being undercooked because it’ll ne quite pink and the rest of the meat will be quite pale in color. If you cook it for 60 minutes at the above temp however the meat will be cooked.
When done allow to rest for 5 minutes and carve into slices. I served this with a parsnip puree, garlic potato gratin and some tenderstem broccoli. Enjoy!
