Brined Pork Loin with Huckleberries or Blueberries

Recipe: Brined Pork Loin with Huckleberries or Blueberries
Page: 175
Date Cooked: August 19, 2011

The key word for this recipe was: brining. I personally was interested in what exactly brining did to the meat.  You hear about it many times, but what is the true difference between a brine and a marinade. Sorry the nerd in me is going to rant for the next few sentences. From what I gather a brine is simply salt water. Allowing meat to sit in a brine allows it to become more tender when cooked because the meat cells have absorbed a lot of water from the brine solution via osmosis. Furthermore, the salt in the brine denatures the meat proteins further preventing dehydration when cooked. All in all you end up with a tender and moist piece of meat.

Ingredients: Pork loin (not shown), salt, sugar, carrots, onions, garlic, shallots, ginger, leeks, celery, butter, bay leaves, Beaujolais Nouveau, small potatoes, pepper, blueberries, and red wine vinegar

The pork was placed in a brine overnight. To create the brine, I dissolved salt and sugar in boiling water. I put the pork in a dish and covered it with the brine, turning it a few times during the overnight process.

Pork loin in brine

The next day, I proceeded to prepare all the ingredients. I peeled the carrots, onions, garlic, shallots, and ginger; and cleaned the leeks. I cut the carrots, leeks, and celery into lengths and quartered the onions. During this time, I also removed the pork from the brine and placed it into a Dutch oven with butter and browned it on all sides.

Left: Veggie mise en place Right: Browning pork

After I removed the pork from the pan, I added the carrots, onions, shallots, ginger, and garlic and browned them all on sides. I then added the leeks, celery, bay leaves, pork, wine, and enough water to completely cover the meat. The contents were brought to a boil, the pan was covered and placed in the oven.

1. Browning carrots, onions, shallots, ginger, and garlic 2. Added the leeks, celery, and bay leaves
3. With the pork, wine, and water

After the meat was "fork tender," I removed the casserole from the oven and took out the pork and covered it on a plate. I then let the cooking liquid reduce down to a few cups. I emptied the contents of the pan, strained the liquid, and then placed it back into the pot along with the pork.

Pork with reduced braising liquid

While the braising liquid reduced I worked on the potatoes. I set them into a saucepan with some water and salt and brought it a boil. I drained the potatoes, placed them back in the saucepan, and mashed them. I added some butter, salt, and pepper and kept the potatoes warm.

Mashed potatoes

Finally, it was time to create the blueberry sauce. I put some blueberries and red wine vinegar into a pan and brought it to a boil until it thickened. I then added the reduced braising liquid along with the rest of the blueberries and allowed it to simmer for a bit.

Blueberry sauce

While the blueberry sauce simmered, I sliced the pork into thin slices and situated them onto the plate. Finally, I poured the berry sauce onto the pork and served it with the potatoes.

Brined Pork Loin with Blueberries

A big reason I selected this cookbook was because I don't really cook "American" food (at least in the way I define it). This meal felt very "American" to me. It was a traditional meal and was quite homey (maybe it was the mashed potatoes that did it). I enjoyed the dish very much. There is no doubt to me that the brining and braising amplified the pork's "flavor and richness." It was perfectly tender and I really loved the acidity and sweetness of the sauce. It made for a beautiful plate. The potatoes were a side, nothing too exciting there. But it made sense, the star on the plate was the pork and the sauce.

Enjoy!