I’m trying something a little different today. I usually show individual dishes throughout the week, with the whole meal on Friday. This time I’m showing the finished product first. Call it an experiment in automaticity.
Ingredients
2-1/2 pound pork tenderloin
1 stick butter (1/2 cup)
kosher salt
fresh ground black pepper
flour for dredging, about 1-2 cups
2 pounds redskin potatoes, about one per guest
1/4 cup rendered bacon fat
1 cup diced onion
kosher salt
fresh ground black pepper
Directions
There was a great discussion over on Jenni’s Pastry Methods and Techniques blog a couple of weeks ago about cooking creativity. Jenni obviously knows a lot more about the psychology of it than I do. She’s the one who taught me the word “automaticity”.
The bottom line, though, is once you know the basic cooking techniques you can apply those techniques to lots of different ingredients. Eventually you reach a point where you don’t even need the instructions for a recipe, just the list of ingredients.
Consider this post a test of that theory. Take a look at the pan fried chicken in butter recipe, and see if you can figure out what to do with the pork.
Then look at the ingredients for the potatoes, the name, and the finished product. Take a guess at the technique.
Finally, come back for the next couple of days and see how close you were.
UPDATE:
The two recipes are up now. Here’s the fried smashed potatoes A couple people noticed these are pretty similar to Ree’s crash hot potatoes.
And here are the pan fried pork tenderloin chops.
Want more like this? For more recipes like this, that you can hold right in your hands, and write on, take notes, tear pages out if you want (Gosh, you're tough on books, aren't you?) you might be interested in How To Cook Like Your Grandmother, 2nd edition, Illustrated. Or to learn your way around the kitchen, check out Starting From Scratch: The Owner's Manual for Your Kitchen.
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11 Comments
I’ve got it figured out, the only thing I’m not positive on is whether you fry the potatoes before or after smashing them. I’m leaning toward after…
Oh, and I didn’t even bother to look at the chicken recipe, I’ve been frying meet for years! Love your blog.
Oh, this is wonderful! Spread the gospel, brother
(And the food looks great, too)!
Audrey, you didn’t think there was a prise for being first or anything, did you.
Jenni, I’m always doing things because it just seems so obvious, then finding out people have actually thought about it and there’s a name for it. And it had do be an academic who came up with a six-syllable word for “experience”.
Yup! I’m here to simplify your life
Oh, that’s funny. I just did fried loin chops the other night (saw whole loin on sale and bought enough for 2 roasts and the rest sliced for chops).
All I did was throw pepper and granulated garlic on either side and fry it in some olive oil (which, now this blog has me wondering how “olive” that olive oil is).
Nope, I just happened to be up late when the feed came through, kinda like tonight
Too much homework…
Wench, sorry for making you question your oil. (Wait, no I’m not, I want people to question their oil.) Oops, did I type that out loud?
Have you tried seasoning pork with oregano and cinnamon? Sounds funny but it`s actually very good!
Alexandra, where were you last week? I just did these again over the weekend. I would love to have tried that. Okay, just have to wait until I do them again.
I just have to say that these potatoes are fabulous! We put out a huge garden every year & plant enough potatoes (we plant red pontiac) to feed an army so I’m always looking for new ways to cook them. The only thing I did differently was use a house seasoning (salt, pepper, garli powder) that I put in almost everyting. I LOVE them, can’t say enough about them!