Remember That Demi-Glace?

Remember that demi-glace?  If you missed it, click here. I finally got a chance to use it in what is touted to be "one of the most popular dishes at Les Halles," Mignons de Porc a L'ail, from Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook.  I made this before, but with store-bought stock, and found with all the reduction of the sauce that it was a little salty.  Not this time!  I used home-made veal stock and a shot of demi-glace.  It turned out great! This dish consists of pork tenderloins stuffed with garlic confit and bacon, marinated overnight, and then roasted, and topped with a shallot, wine, and garlic confit sauce. It's not hard...try it! I'll show you how:

Mignons de Porc a L'ail:

Serves 4-6. I served with mashed potatoes, as Bourdain suggested.

Ingredients:

4 heads of garlic confit, click here to learn how. (Don't forget the recipe requires 4 heads of garlic, not just the 2 I show in the Techniques tab, you'll have to double it.)
4 pork tenderloins, about 10 oz each (I used 2, 18.4 oz pork tenderloins - that's all I could find)
2 slices of bacon
1 tablespoon olive oil
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 shallots, thinly sliced
1/4 white wine (I used a Sauvignon Blanc)
1/2 cup strong, dark chicken or veal stock (if using store-bought, I highly recommend using a low-sodium or sodium free stock, if you can find it)
1 sprig of flat leaf parsley, finely chopped

Directions:

The day before:

"Use a fork to mash half of the garlic cloves.  Reserve the remaining cloves separately in a small bowl.  Lay two tenderloins down across a cutting board."  (Because I was using larger tenderloins, I cut halfway through the tenderloins, lengthwise, so they would flatten out and mimic using smaller ones.)

"Lay some plastic wrap across them and give them a light pounding with the heel of your hand.  You're looking to flatten the tenderloins ever so slightly on the fatter end. Remove and discard the plastic wrap.

Top the tenderloins with the mashed garlic, spreading the pastelike substance evenly along the length of the tenderloins.  Lay the bacon slices across the garlic the long way."  Like so:

"Now lay the other two tenderloins on top of the first two, the fatter ends pointing in the opposite direction from the ones on the bottom, so that they nestle together in a yin-yang sort of way, creating a fairly even-shaped tube. Using kitchen string, tie each double tenderloin together tightly and evenly a several points along the tube (that way it can be sliced into medallions without cutting the string).  Refrigerate overnight."  Like so: 

The next day:

"Preheat the oven to 350 degrees." (I recommend 450 degrees.) "Remove the tenderloins from the refrigerator. In a saute pan, heat the olive oil over high heat.  Add 1 tablespoon of the butter. When the butter stops foaming, season the pork, then add it to the pan." "Cook the pork over high heat for about 6 to 8 minutes per side, after which the meat should be nicely browned." (I found that if I were to cook the pork over high heat for 6 to 8 minutes per side, it would have burned.  It browned quicker, so I removed it after it had a nice, golden brown crust, and compensated by upping the oven temperature. It worked great and hopefully Bourdain will forgive me!) "Place the meat in a roasting pan and finish cooking in the oven for about 20 minutes.  When cooked through, but still moist in the center, remove from the oven and allow to rest on a plate."  (I used a oven-safe meat thermometer, and pulled it out at 135-140 degrees. Tent with foil and remember, the temperature will continue to rise while resting.)

For the sauce:

"Discard the fat from the saute pan and add 1 tablespoon of the butter.  Heat over medium-high heat, then add the shallots.  Cook for 2 minutes, or until the shallots are soft.  Stir in the wine with a wooden spoon, scraping the bottom to dislodge the good stuff.  Cook over high heat until the wine is reduced to a glaze consistency, then stir in the stock.  Cook over high heat until it's reduced by half.  (At this point you should, if you can, whisk in a spoon of that good demi-glace from your stash.) Add any drippings from the plate that's holding your cooked pork.  Whisk the remaining tablespoon of butter into the sauce, as well, as the remaining cloves of garlic confit and the parsley.  A little splash of raw wine at this point is nice, too." (Because I used a no-sodium stock and demi-glace, I did add a pinch of salt to the sauce, taste it.)

To serve:

"Slice the pork into 1 1/2-inch medallions, arrange them around a platter, and spoon over the sauce.  This dish is very good with mashed potatoes, in which case, you might want to arrange the medallions on and around the potatoes, with the garlic confit-studded sauce also poured over and around.  Delicious."  

What to drink?  The remainder of the wine, of course!