Recipe: Pork Cutlets Cubano

Hey all! It's time for another recipe. This is my first time trying the recipe, which comes from my second favourite cookbook, The Guy Can't Cook (again by the amazing Cinda Chavich. Are you sensing a theme here?)

First of all, the ingredients:

Now, a couple of things right off. That slimy shiny slab of meat in the foreground? That's pork tenderloin. Yum! The recipe calls for 2 tenderloins, but as I'm only cooking for 3 people, I just stuck with one big one. It should still make plenty! Other notable ingredients? Well that hugely long red pepper is called a "sweet tooth" pepper (ever heard of them before? I hadn't). The recipe actually calls for Hungarian or Cubanelle peppers, but since I could find neither, I decided to stick in another random type and see what happens. I'll let you know below!* Oh, and those rabbit ear looking things behind the red onion? That's our pepper grinder. I didn't notice the placement until just now, but I think it's kind of cute. :)

Anyways, on to the actual cooking! The first step was to mash the cut tenderloin until it was a uniform 1/2 inch thickness. Or at least that's what I was supposed to do. I got a bit lazy, so mine weren't exactly 1/2 inch thick. Or uniform. Oh well. They still turned out.

After that lightly dredge the cutlets in flour (if you want - this is an optional step, but I recommend it).

Brown the cutlets on both sides in oil in a frying pan, just lightly. If you're lazy like me and you made the cutlets thicker than 1/2 an inch, maybe brown them a little longer.

Once they're browned, pull them out of the pan and set them aside. In the same pan, throw in the chopped pepper, red onion and minced garlic. Saute for about 5 minutes. 

Then add some white wine, chicken broth and balsamic vinegar and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and add the cutlets back in, making sure to spoon some sauce and veggies back over top of them.

Cover and simmer for approximately 20 minutes. Flip the cutlets about halfway through to ensure that they cook evenly all the way through. And if you, like me, don't have a cover for your skillet, you can always make a ghetto one like this:

*sigh* Oh well. Whatever works, right? When the pork is tender, pile it on top of some rice and dig in!

I paired mine with some honey roasted carrots and parsnips, which were also delicious. And very colourful on the plate!

Here's the full recipe:

Pork Cutlets Cubano

Ingredients:

2 pork tenderloins (about 375g each) [If you only use 1 like 1 did, the recipe makes enough for 4 people]

4 Tbsp olive oil, divided

2 Cubanelle or Hungarian peppers, seeded and sliced

2 bell peppers (red and/or yellow), seeded and sliced

1 large red onion, slivered

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 cup white wine

1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar

1/2 cup chicken broth

salt and freshly ground black pepper

flour

chopped fresh parsley to garnish

Directions:

1. Using a sharp, pointed knife, remove any silver skin on the outside of the tenderloin. Slip the tip of the knife under the skin at one end to release it, then lift the skin with one hand as you slice it away.

2. Once the meat is trimmed, cut each tenderloin into slices, each about 2 inches thick.

3. Lay the piece of pork on a piece of plastic wrap, cut-side down. Cover with a second piece of plastic and, using a meat mallet or the back of your chef's knife, lightly pound the pieces to an even thickness of about 1/2 inch.

4. To cook the cutlets, season with salt and pepper on both sides, and dredge lightly in flour, if desired. Heat half of the olive oil in a non-stick saute pan over medium-high heat and when the oil is hot, pan fry the cutlets until just brown (about 2 minutes per side).

5. Remove the cutlets form the pan and set aside. Add the remaining oil to the pan and fry the pepper, onion and garlic for about 10 minutes, until the vegetables begin to soften and brown. Sprinkle 1 Tbsp of flour over the vegetables and stir. Add the wine, vinegar, and broth. Bring to a boil, scraping up the browned bits from frying the meat. Return the cutlets to the pan and spoon some of the vegetables and sauce over the meat.

6. Cover the skillet, reduce heat to low and braise for 20 minutes, until the pork is tender. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and parsley.

* Pepper Update: Sweet Tooth Peppers taste exactly like red bell peppers. Maybe a titch sweeter, but otherwise indistinguishable. Ah well. It was worth a try!