BBQ Pork Loin and Red Red Potatoes

I don’t think I could have asked for dinner to have gone any better than it did last night. Here’s the rundown:

First, I took out two thawed pork loins from the refrigerator and did a moist rub (consisting of kosher salt, fresh cracked pepper, dark chili powder, and extra virgin olive oil) on them. I plastic wrapped (is that proper English?) them up, and let them marinade for an hour and a half at room temperature. This may at first seem gross, but for the method of cooking I was going to use, unless you do this the meat will be too cold in the center to cook fast enough and then you’re going to either end up with the middle being raw or dry – not moist and tender like we want!

While doing this, I had a stock pot of red potatoes boiling to mash. They were then mashed (skin on) with butter (oh butter, how I have a love/hate relationship with thou!).

I then julienned (never slice!) a red onion and sautéed the pretty pieces. All the oddly shaped middle parts I had an ulterior motive for. The now caramelized red onion slices got tossed into my mashed red potatoes (see why they're called Red Red Potatoes?) and folded in with a spatula – the bowl then went into my 350° oven (kind of twice baked potato-ish!).

Now back to the pork loin! After setting out, I basted them with my favorite barbecue sauce in the WHOLE WORLD. It’s from Dunbar, West Virginia, so not only am I happy it’s so tasty, I’m supporting a small business as well! (Caveat: I promise, this is the best barbecue sauce ever. It has the perfect blend of hot and sweet, and is excellent on pork, chicken, and meatballs!) I braised the loins in the same pan that I caramelized the onions in for about ten minutes on each side. This allowed a nice crust to form on the outside of the pork loin to seal all the juices in.

Remember those ugly onion pieces I mentioned before? They went into the bottom of my pan with about a ¼ cup of water – about half the distance to the baking rack I sat in the pan. This allows steam to rise while baking keeping the meat moist during such a dry method of cooking. I added the meat to the rack, added another layer of barbeque sauce and it then went into my 350° oven for 25 minutes. The meat was then turned, basted once more, and cooked for the final 25 minutes.

Dinner went very well – we started with a baby romaine salad, and then dinner consisted of the two dishes I described making (mashed red potatoes with caramelized red onions and the barbeque pork loin) and some fresh corn I bought at Kroger the other day. Since I had guests over, I didn’t have time to take a picture of the plating – which was rather plain since I wanted everyone to eat it hot!

Of course the day I have to study for an exam is the day I have something to blog about...probably more later when I need another break.