Recipes, Pork Recipes

Pork Tenderloin with Romesco Sauce & Blackened Leeks

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Pork Tenderloin Recipe: A late summer or early autumn favourite, this pork tenderloin recipe highlights the perfect pairing of Romesco sauce and pork. The sauce is so versatile it’s equally delicious when served with leeks alone. Nuts in the Romesco can be easily swapped – hazelnuts, pecans, or even peanuts work wonderfully if needed. Simple, delicious, and bursting with Spanish charm. Viva España!

Serves: 2 generously, with enough leftovers for an epic sandwich!

Prep time: 20 minutes

Cook time: 35 minutes

Ingredients

Romesco Sauce

Leeks

Pork and Seasoning

Method

Preparing the Romesco Sauce

  1. Preheat the oven to 180°C (fan).
  2. In a roasting tray, add the peppers, tomatoes, bread, garlic cloves, and onion.
  3. Drizzle 2 tablespoons of olive oil over the ingredients.
  4. Roast everything, turning often to prevent the bread or garlic from burning before the rest is done. Start with 20-minutes and check regularly, continuing in increments as needed.
  5. Once done, the contents should be nicely coloured and beginning to char in places.
  6. Remove the tray from the oven and place the nuts on a smaller tray.
  7. Toast the nuts in the oven for about 4-minutes or until golden brown but not burnt. Give them a little longer if necessary.
  8. In a blender, add the roasted vegetables and bread, squeezing the garlic from its skins (discard the skins).
  9. Add the toasted nuts, oregano, the remaining olive oil, paprika, vinegar, and salt. Blitz until smooth. If the mixture is too thick to blend, add just enough warm water to get it moving.
  10. Transfer the Romesco sauce to a bowl and set aside to allow the flavours to develop.

Grilling the Leeks and Pork on the BBQ

  1. Light the charcoal in your grill to prepare for cooking the meat and leeks.
  2. For the pork seasoning, mix the dried herbs, garlic, lemon zest, salt, and pepper. Just before cooking, lightly oil the pork and roll it in the seasoning.
  3. Place the leeks, dry and unseasoned, directly over the glowing embers. Cook until they are charred all over and blackened. A sharp knife should sink through easily when they are done.
  4. Remove the leeks from the grill and gently crumble away any flaking blackness, leaving most of the char intact. Halve the leeks lengthways, lay the flat side down on a plate, drizzle with olive oil, and season lightly with salt.
  5. Cook the pork on the grill until it is faintly pink in the centre or to your preferred level of doneness, allowing around 10-12 minutes for faintly pink, my preferred result, or a few minutes longer if desired. Allow it to rest well before slicing on the bias.
  6. Serve the pork with the charred leeks and Romesco sauce.

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Valentine Warner is a chef, food writer, broadcaster and business owner with a deep-rooted interest in nature, travel and provincial food. He describes his cooking style as “International Grandmother,” blending a strong sense of storytelling with an infectious love of cookery.

Val has a deep respect for ingredients, both wild and cultivated, and an instinctive ability to turn whatever’s available into something hearty, wholesome and satisfying. A firm advocate of native food sources, he shares common ground with Swaledale in championing meat that is flavourful, ethical and high welfare.

Originally trained as a portrait painter, Val has authored five cookbooks, run his own catering company, and is co-owner of Taqueria, a well-loved Mexican café in West London. He is also a partner in Hepple Distillery in Northumberland and Holmen Lofoten, a hotel on Arctic Norway’s Lofoten islands.

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Ask yourself this. When did you last have a really good pork chop? This is why we keep coming back to it. Native, rare breed pork. Dry aged on the bone. Proper depth of flavour. Nothing like the pale, wet stuff you see elsewhere. These are our Pork Chops with Rosemary and Anchovy Butter. Two thick, rindless chops. Two discs of handmade compound butter. Anchovy, rosemary, lemon zest, a little shallot. Old friends. It works.
Ask yourself this. When did you last have a really good pork chop? This is why we keep coming back to it. Native, rare breed pork. Dry aged on the bone. Proper depth of flavour. Nothing like the pale, wet stuff you see elsewhere. These are our Pork Chops with Rosemary and Anchovy Butter. Two thick, rindless chops. Two discs of handmade compound butter. Anchovy, rosemary, lemon zest, a little shallot. Old friends. It works.
@swaledalebutchers
@swaledalebutchers
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@swaledalebutchers
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Follow
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Winter. It felt strange being in Yorkshire, watching the news from the south where snow lay thick and sudden, while here January had arrived quietly, cold and wet, but not yet truly winter as we know it. Up here the season has always moved at a slower pace, and there is something steadying in remembering that. The idea that we should charge straight on after Christmas is a modern one, and it sits awkwardly with bodies and minds that are still tuned to pause, to take stock, to look back at the year just gone. Out on the farms, there is no rush but plenty to do. Some are already lambing, others preparing for it, working with the land rather than against it as the days begin, almost imperceptibly, to lengthen. The fields are still subdued, but there are signs, if you look closely, that life is beginning to stir again. And so, it feels right, now and then, to slow everything down and simply notice Yorkshire in January, not as something to be endured, but as a quiet and beautiful part of the year in its own right.
@swaledalebutchers
@swaledalebutchers
•
Follow
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@swaledalebutchers
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•
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