Pork medallions make for a quick weeknight entree
Here’s a quick, easy and delicious weeknight entree that’s certain to impress your family. The star of the show is pork tenderloin, the leanest and most tender part of the animal. Like beef tenderloin, pork tenderloin is a muscle cushioned by other muscles. It’s tender because it’s not used very much. I prefer it hands-down to pork loin, which is prone to cook up dry and tough.
Pork tenderloin is a narrow cylinder of meat, usually weighing between 1 and 11⁄4 pounds. For this recipe it’s cut crosswise into rounds (or medallions). These medallions would be kind of puny if you cut the tenderloin straight down because it’s only about 2 inches in diameter. Here, though, we slice it at a 45degree angle into rounds that are around 3 inches in diameter.
Tender as it is, tenderloin will dry out if it’s overcooked. This recipe arms you with two ways to guard against it. First, dip the medallions in flour before browning them. Second, brown the meat very quickly, just one minute per side. (Make sure your pan is good and hot before adding the meat.) The flour not only furnishes the meat with a protective outer coating, it also helps thicken the sauce when the meat is returned to the pan at the end of the recipe. And the quick browning leaves the pork extra-pink inside, which makes it that much harder to overcook afterward.
The grapes are the surprise ingredient here. Much as we love grapes straight off the vine, a cooked grape is one in which the flavor has been concentrated. In effect, it becomes grapeier. Once you’ve tasted the cooked grapes in this recipe, you may find yourself adding them to other savory sauces. Try them with sauteed chicken and see for yourself.