So sorry to my partner, but no profiteroles. We’re both beat.
The basic dish was great, though, and it’s something I’d make again.
The polenta is very rich but that’s ok by me: mascarpone, butter, parmesan cheese, in addition to be cooked with whole milk, half-and-half and broth. If I’d had my act together, I would have cooked it on the skillet but it was also great as a soft, silky polenta with pork and sauce.
The sauce has a lot of sour to it—vinegar and lime—but with some sweet bell peppers, some onions and garlic, and some bitter greens. I used the teeniest pinch of my own insanely hot smoked pepper flakes and that did the trick on the heat.
The whole thing recognizes that pork tenderloin is relatively flavorless (though I think it has more intrinsic flavor than beef tenderloin) and needs a sauce and a soothing starch-and-fat blanket to sit in.
Pretty much the classic strength of the brasserie—something that bad American chains abuse by damping the stronger flavors and amping the sugar and fat. It gets worse when they get their hands on sous vide machines and can keep something like a pork tenderloin at service temperature for a whole night with just the quickest browning. I can always taste—perhaps the word is distaste—when I’ve gotten something that’s basically sub-boiled meat with a last-second browning on it.
So of course the book stays. I might even make the profiteroles sometime soon. If nothing else, the book itself is pretty thin: it fits on the shelf pretty well. Big books are at a disadvantage in that sense alone.
And it lets me dream of reservations I might make someday.
That looks like exactly the kind of dish I’d like on a coldish night, too. (Hi, Melissa!)
It was delicious and I can't even name a favorite thing because everything stood out. No need for the profiteroles. Very filling and warm on a coldish night.