I’ve never been great at following directions in the kitchen. I’m not a very creative person in my everyday life, but when it comes to cooking, for some reason my inner artist tends to come out. I tend to use recipes as inspiration rather than instructions, borrowing flavor combinations or techniques, but always putting my own spin on the dish. When I tell most people this, they are usually impressed and say hings like “Wow! You must be a great cook!” or “I’m not brave enough to do that!”
The problem with these reactions is they they suppose that my recipe tweaks always work out well, which they don’t! Lately I’ve been having some difficulty coming up with great meat-based dishes on my own. I am not great at knowing when a piece of meat is cooked properly, and have been erring on the side of over-cooking my meat, which usually results in a disappointing final product.
So, I figured I’d trust the experts at Bon Appetit magazine to show me how it’s done. The cover recipe of the October 2011 issue, Prosciutto-Wrapped Pork Loin with Roasted Apples, might have been a bit advanced for my skill level, but I figured if I could just follow the directions, I’d end up with a great meal.
Yeah, not my finest photography work. What can I say? I was hungry!
I was half right.
The only real problem I had with the recipe was with butterflying the pork loin. The instructions said that you could ask the butcher to butterfly it for you, but I skimmed over that part of the recipe. Again I figured if I followed the directions, I could do it myself.
Womp womp.
I ended up making the butterflied pork loin much too thick, which meant that it was nearly impossible to roll the stuffed loin. In hindsight, I should have reserved some of the stuffing and served it alongside the pork. Ah well, it still tasted fine. Also, since the pork loin was too fat, the prosciutto didn’t wrap around the loin completely. The other mistake I made was not reading the ingredients list carefully enough. I didn’t see the part that listed ground pork as part of the filling! I thought it was jut a vegetable stuffing. I ended up using ground turkey instead, which didn’t add any flavor at all to the dish.
Parting Thoughts
I’m so glad I followed this recipe! The results are impressive looking and great tasting. I would definitely serve this to company. In fact, I think it would make a great alternative to turkey at a Thanksgiving meal, or be wonderful for any holiday dinner. That being said, of course there are a few things I would do differently. Next time, I will skip the ground meat in the filling all together. It just doesn’t need it. I will also swap out the prosciutto for bacon. The prosciutto got a bit too crisp in the oven and dried out a bit. The roasted apples were my absolute favorite part. They absorbed a lot of the pork flavors but were still sweet and tender. Awesome. The sauce was fantastic as well. A note of caution: lining the pan you roast the pork loin in is essential! My pan required a long soak before it came clean.
You can find the recipe for Prosciutto-Wrapped Pork Loin with Roasted Apples here: http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/2011/10/prosciutto-wrapped-pork-loin-with-roasted-apples
