Perfect pork tenderloin parmigiana: Day 24

Andreas Trottmasndorff

This recipe sounded really good: Pork tenderloin parmigiana. I love Parmesan cheese. I suppose I love most cheeses, but Parmesan cheese has a way of making a dish absolutely delightful, doesn’t it? Add the word ‘parmigiana’ to any food item and I will try it. Hmm, would ‘Parmigiana’ make a nice girl’s name? Sorry, my baby name list is a little bare in the girl column and I just have three more months to go. It’s been so exciting trying all these recipes (23 so far!) that baby name brainstorming has fallen by the wayside.

But, back to pork-prepping, I used fine dry bread crumbs as I knew I had them on hand. Next time I will try panko, which are Japanese bread crumbs made from crustless bread, as explained in the sidebar on the recipe page of the cookbook. The thought of a crispier texture sounds delectable. Plus I am a fan of all things Japanese. Hmm, why haven’t I cooked with panko before? I mixed the bread crumbs with the grated Parmesan cheese, fresh rosemary, minced garlic cloves, salt and pepper. I rubbed the pork tenderloin with olive oil and then rolled it into the bread crumb mixture. Most of it stuck. Excellent!

I love dishes that don’t use up a lot of utensils and that have a cooking time which allows for cleanup of most of the preparatory equipment. The 30 to 40 minutes roasting time easily allowed time for cleanup and for preparing a nice green salad. Unless your toddler has croup (a viral throat infection common in young ones) and is extra needy of your attention. In which case, you follow the croup treatment guidelines of keeping him happy and so when he asks to watch Sesame Street videos on the computer you leave the pork tenderloin roasting, knowing that you’ve set the timer and its forthcoming bleating will ensure that you don’t burn dinner.

I had forgotten, however, that the recipe advised to stir the tomatoes occasionally so the 20-plus minutes of neglect (at least I did remember at some point) resulted in the discarding of approximately half of the grape tomatoes that had been scattered around the pork. The less charred ones remained on the serving platter. It would definitely look prettier surrounded by more tomatoes. Oops. I needed to cook the pork for a little over 40 minutes. It was another hit at the dining table (even the croup afflicted two-year-old enjoyed it) and, sigh, there were no leftovers. This is a simple to make and extremely tasty meat dish. And I’ll bet it looks even prettier surrounded by more roasted tomatoes!