Pork Loin with Pancetta, Thyme and Grilled Peaches
Posted on | February 11, 2009 | No Comments
My favorite summer dish
This time, the bricolage emanates not from the ingredients, but in the methodology. For this dish, I used a tried and true recipe from our good friend The Naked Chef — Jamie Oliver. The basic ingredients are really quite simple to throw together:
(Recipe Courtesy of Jamie Oliver)
This fruit and meat combo is great. Give it a bash as it makes a really good change to plain old roast pork.
1 (3 1/2 pound) (1 1/2 kilogram) pork loin, boned
1 bunch fresh thyme, leaves picked
1 bulb garlic
7 ounces (200 grams) butter
2 tins (cans) peaches in natural juice, drained
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Around 15 slices of pancetta, streaky bacon, or Parma ham
1 glass (about 6 ounces) white wine
A little flour
1 glass (about 6 ounces) water Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C/gas 7
Here’s the twist, though: the oven with which I was working was broken. As this is a roasted dish, my only option was the grill.
So, I found a disposable foil pan and decided to use the gas grill as my oven. The gas grill I use is hot. Too hot, I think, for many, far more delicate dishes. In this case it was perfect.
As this quickly became a grill theme, I decided to start with the peaches. I drained three (not two) 15 oz cans, rinsed the fruit and tossed them directly onto a slightly oiled grill. I wanted to give them a nice char, which I thought would go well with the sweetness of the peach. The peaches were on the grill for about 8 minutes, 4 minutes per side. Depending on how hot your grill is, just leave them on each side until you see grill marks.
Pull the peaches off.
The pork loin was next. As the grill was hot, I threw each loin on the heat for about a minute per side to, similar to the peaches, give it a nice char and some grill marks.
Pull the pork off and set on the cutting board. Make the Thyme butter mixture by hand. The recipe initially called for crushed garlic in the butter, but I wanted to take the heat off it a little so I sauteed it for about 30 seconds and then tossed it in teh fridge to cool it down so it wouldn’t liquefy the butter. As soon as it’s cool, mush the thyme leaves, butter and garlic together by hand in a bowl.
Back to the pork loin. Slice the thick side of each loin to create a cavity leading up to about a half inch toward the end of the loin. The cavity needs to be deep enough to contain the peaches. Season the cavity with Mrs. S and Mr. P.
Next, take your butter mixture and spread it generally inside the cavity of the loin.
Next, stuff enough grilled peaches inside to fill the cavity, but you should still be able to close it over the fruit.
Next, take the pancetta slices and cover the loin from the top over the side of the cavity. I didn’t have any twine, so I used toothpick to seal the cavity (NOTE: as I planned to grill this, I soaked the toothpicks in water so they wouldn’t burn).
Next, lay the loin in the foil pan and cover with the remaining peaches and a bit more of the butter mixture.
On to the grill. If you have a typical horizontal grill, set the pan on the far end away from one of the heat sources set to medium high. The pan should not lay directly above the fire. If you have four burners, you might want to turn on two and leave two OFF. Close the grill and cook for about 20-30. Depending on the heat of your fire, check every 12 minutes or so to make sure that the mixture isn’t burning or bubbling to aggresively. The pancetta should reduce and start to brown. At completion, it should look a lot like the picture to the left.
Pull from the grill and cover with foil to let the dish cool down. after 10 minutes or so, remove the loins to a cutting board and slice the loin into smaller pieces. Arrange on a serving dish, as shown to the left, and cover with the remaining peaches and juices from the foil pan. Serve with a sprig of time.
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