Vietnamese Pork Loin

While perusing a book store, I came upon David Tannis’ cookbook One Good Dish. Flipping through a couple pages it seemed like a lot of the recipes were really straight forward: have a base vegetable or meat, add herbs, cook. Serve with a glass of wine, high five yourself for preparing an amazing meal and leave the cleanup for someone else!

Because I’ve become so smitten with this guy’s recipes, I ventured over to his Recipe Book featured in the NYT and was immediately drawn to the Vietnamese Braised Pork Ribs mostly for the fact that he braised them in the oven instead of cooking them on a grill. Being grill-less myself, I’ve actually had really good luck making oven-baked ribs in the past and seeing that this was just a different take on a meat rub, I figured I could easily make this dish without screwing it up.

Then I went to the grocery store and found out that they only had frozen baby back ribs (my and my boyfriend’s favorite) or thawed St Louis Style ribs (not our favorite) and both were still $18 for a rack. Jesus, no! Apparently I’m used to going to the grocery store when those bad boys are on sale or I get them for cheaper at Aldi’s because I wasn’t going to spend $20 on ribs that weren’t smoked for 4 hours and served to me after 20 minutes of putting my order in.

So I decided a marinade’s a marinade, and that the $10 hunk of pork loin would sub in just fine. Right? The recipe calls for 3-4 lbs of ribs, and I had 2 lbs of pork loin, so I’d just half the recipe and cook it like any other pork loin. After slathering on the marinade and popping it back in the fridge to soak, however, I started to worry that my math wasn’t really accurate. Sure 2 lbs is half of 4 lbs, but pork loin is solid meat. Ribs are at least half bones. Maybe I shouldn’t have halved the recipe? Ungh, I didn’t feel like making MORE marinade, so I just assumed it’d be fine and hoped for the best.

In the end, I think what saved my butt was that I left the meat in the fridge over night instead of cooking it after 2 hours because it. turned out. delicious!

Can you seeeeeee the deliciousness?

I’m so excited for leftovers 🙂

 

Adapted from David Tannis’ Vietnamese Braised Pork Ribs recipe, New York Times Cooking Recipe Box

INGREDIENTS

• 1 medium shallot, finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon lemongrass paste 
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 1/2 tablespoon fish sauce (such as Red Boat)
• 1/2 tablespoon hot chile paste (such as sambal oelek)
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon Chinese five-spice powder
• 1/2 tablespoon grated garlic
• 1 tablespoon finely chopped or grated ginger
• 2 pounds pork loin
• 2 scallions, slivered or chopped, for garnish
• Cilantro and mint sprigs, for garnish

PREPARATION

1. Make the marinade: In a small bowl, put the shallots, lemongrass, soy sauce, fish sauce, chile paste, salt, sugar, five-spice powder, garlic and ginger. Mix well.
2. Put the meat in a deep baking dish or roasting pan and add marinade. Using your hands, coat pork loin well. Let marinate overnight in the refrigerator, well wrapped. 
3. Preheat oven to $450°F and coat an ovenproof skillet with oil.
4. Over medium-high heat, sear the tenderloin so that it browns all sides.
5. Place seared tenderloin on foil-lined baking sheet and roast in the oven for 30-40 minutes, until the internal temperature reads 145°F.
6. Once out of the oven, let rest for at least 5 minutes before serving.