Some of you may remember the SousVide contest a few months back. Well, we didn’t win, but they asked if we would be interested in keeping it if we’d post a couple recipes using the machine. I know 99.9% of people in the world don’t have one of these contraptions, but don’t click off of this recipe just yet, because you can still make it without a SousVide. And before you think we’re sell-outs and that the SousVide is a gourmand’s counter space taker-upper, let me just say that I actually do like the thing. At first, I didn’t. Sorry Sous, it’s true. But I started thinking about it like a backwards slow cooker. Instead of making one complete meal at a time, the SousVide can make 4-8 partial meals at a time.
Let me explain…
I tossed 2 pouches of meat in the water bath (2 pork tenderloins and 3 tri-trip steaks) at one time and literally had most of the protein I needed for the week, done and cooked to tender, meaty perfection with zero attention needed. Pop the pouches into the fridge or freezer for later in the week. So here comes Thursday, when you don’t feel like cooking, boom. Take out a pork tenderloin. Make a side dish and a 5 minute sauce and you have a complete, fancy-looking meal, complete with perfectly cooked meat, on the table in a respectable amount of time.
And let me say one more shining thing about this machine, it literally made the most tender pork tenderloin I have ever cooked or eaten. You may or may not have noticed that I don’t post pork chop or pork anything recipes, really, except sausage and bacon, and it’s because I always think it’s dry and boring.
Ingredients
- 1 large pork tenderloin
- s&p
- 1/2 cup balsamic vinegar + more
- 1/3 cup maple syrup
For a complete meal, make the French Pork and Beans too:
- 1 lb haricot verts (French green beans)
- 4 slices thick cut bacon
- s&p
Method
Heat the SousVide to 145ºF (fill it with water too, of course). Meanwhile, liberally season the pork tenderloin with salt and pepper and vacuum seal in a pouch. Cook for 1½ hours, and up to 8 hours. If you don’t have a SousVide, just brown the tenderloin in a hot skillet and pop it in the oven to finish cooking.
Once the pork is almost done, start making the sauce (and the green beans too–instructions below)…
Pour vinegar and maple syrup in a small sauce pot, over medium heat. Let the mixture start to foam, once the foam has subsided the mixture should start to bubble (kind of looks like black caramel). Once that happens, remove the pot from the heat and let cool a bit.
From here, make sure the sauce is a consistency you like, if it’s too thick or too sweet, add more straight up balsamic vinegar–adds a nice tangy/sour punch and thins out the reduction.
To finish the pork, take the tenderloin out of the pouch and sear in a very hot skillet, just to brown the outside of the meat, then slice away.
For the “Pork and Beans”
Preheat your oven to 450ºF. Trim off the ends of the green beans. Slice the bacon into small bits.
Toss the green beans onto a large sheet tray, along with the bacon bits, and some salt and pepper.
Pop in the oven, stirring occasionally, until the beans have developed a brown color and the bacon is crispy, about 30 minutes.
Mix in about 1/4 to 1/3 of the sauce with the green beans and use the rest to serve with the pork.
Pork belly, bacon, loins, chops, sausage, fatback, lardo, pancetta, ham and lard…oh my. I am well aware that we write an overwhelmingly disproportionate amount of recipes that involve pork. If Brandon didn’t say, “Hey, let’s eat some beef tonight.”, we’d only eat pork..and some eggs too. Along with its fat, pork tastes like no other protein out there. It is my hands. down. favorite. Obviously.