Cider-Glazed Pork (ATK)

• doses: 6

Ingredientes

1 (3-pound) boneless center- cut pork loin, tied

Salt and pepper

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

6 small shallots, peeled (and halved if large)

2 cups apple cider

½ cup apple butter

1 bay leaf

1 sprig fresh thyme

1 teaspoon cider vinegar

Instruções

1. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 375 degrees. Pat pork loin dry with paper towels and season with salt and pepper.

2. Heat 1 tablespoon oil in large skillet over medium- high heat until just smoking. Place pork loin, fat side down, in skillet and cook, turning it several times, until browned on all sides, 8 to 10 minutes. Transfer pork, fat side down, to 13 by 9-inch baking dish and roast until thermometer inserted in thickest part registers 85 degrees, about 25 minutes.

3. While pork roasts, cook remaining tablespoon oil and shallots in empty skillet over medium heat until golden brown, 3 to 5 minutes. Increase heat to high, add cider, apple butter, bay leaf, and thyme and bring to boil. Cook until thicnened, about 8 minutes.

4. After pork has roasted for 25 minutes, pour glaze over pork and, using tongs, roll pork to coat with glaze. Cook until internal temperature registers 145 degrees, 20 to 30 minutes more, turning once halfway through to recoat with glaze. Transfer pork to cutting board, tent with foil, and let rest 20 minutes. Transfer glaze to small saucepan and whisk in vinegar.

5. Before slicing pork, pour accumulated juices from roast into glaze and warm glaze over low heat. Cut roast into ¼-inch slices, transfer to platter, and spoon ½ cup glaze over top. Serve, passing remaining glaze at table.

Notas

Kitchen Know-How

TAKE THE TIME TO TIE

A pork loin is often narrow at one end and thick at the other, and its overall shape is pretty flat. Tying the roast at 1½-inch intervals with butcher's twine produces a rounder roast that cooks more evenly and carves into more attractive slices.

Big Apple Flavor Cider alone couldn't produce the big apple flavor we wanted in the glaze for our pork loin. Apple butter (super-concentrated applesauce) pumped up the flavor of the glaze and helped it cling to the roast. I recently tried a recipe for cider-glazed pork loin. It seemed like the perfect fall dinner, but

I was disappointed when the glaze came out soupy, with very little apple flavor. I was expecting the cider to cook down and coat the roast. Where did I go wrong? -Marjorie McClendon, St. Paul, Minn.

American pigs have had most of the fat bred out of them over the last half-century, and, as a result, pork loin—a lean cut to begin with-can be pretty dry and bland. A sticky-sweet cider glaze can hide these flaws, but just pouring cider over a roast and shoving it into the oven doesn't work. When I tried this most obvious method, I was shocked to find that the cider made the meat worse: The roast refused to brown as it sat in a watery pool of cider. Glazing a pork roast requires a bit more finesse. My first goal was to develop a reliable roasting method without a glaze. To improve browning (and thus add flavor), I tried roasting the meat in a very hot oven. While most recipes call for 375 or 400 degrees, I dis- covered that the oven has to be cranked up to at least 450 degrees to brown the exterior. Unfortunately, the meat (especially the outer portion) was chalky and dry by the time the center was done. In the end, I found that browning the pork loin in a skillet and then transferring it to a moderate oven (375 degrees) produced a more evenly cooked, juicier With my roasting technique under control, it was time to focus on the glaze. To help the glaze cling to the meat, I thought I'd trying simmering the cider in the (now-empty) pan I had used to brown the pork. Simmering thickened the cider and punched up the apple flavor, but the glaze still wasn't sticky enough. To make it more syrupy, I tried adding maple syrup, honey, and brown sugar. The maple and honey competed with the apple flavor, and the brown sugar was so sweet it caused my glaze to scorch. Next I tried adding applesauce, apple jelly, and apple butter. The applesauce was too grainy and the jelly too sweet, but the apple butter was just right, contributing substance as well as apple flavor. Shallots and herbs rounded out the flavors of the glaze. I tested adding the glaze at different stages throughout the cooking process and finally settled on the halfway point. Added earlier, the glaze burned; added later, it didn't reduce enough. I also found it imperative to use a fairly small baking dish. In a shallow broiler pan, the glaze evaporated too quickly. The pork loin fit snuggly in a 13 by 9-inch baking dish, where it sat in a deeper pool of glaze. While my nicely glazed roast pork loin was resting, I noticed that it was "leaking" juices onto the cutting board. Adding those juices to the glaze remaining in the baking dish produced an intensely flavored sauce I could serve with the sliced pork. With a glaze that does double duty as a sauce, my recipe gives pork loin the powerful flavor boost it needs. -Katie Henderson

Stovetop searing followed by roasting with an apple glaze combine to give our pork roast a deep, rich flavor.

Make sure to tie the roast (see photo at left) if your butcher hasn't already done so.

OCTOBER /NOVEMBER 2006• COOK'S COUNTRY