Spiced Pork Loin wiht Beaujolais-Soused Bing Cherries

By corlear

During the March I spent gathering recipes for this book in a little house perched on La Montagne de Beaune, my neighbor, Chantal, generously shared companionship and culinary wisdom with me. She lent me all her favorite cookbooks, including a glorious, just-published one called Colette Gourmande. As we both shared a love for Colette’s writing, we relished the opportunity to savor her delicious words and food together. When I was leaving France, I picked up a current issue of the food magazine Saveurs, which coincidentally featured a beautifully illustrated article on the gastronomic enchantments of Colette’s Burgundy birthplace—La Puisaye. An exquisite photo of a fresh cherry soup that was supposedly prepared on days when "one didn’t cook” chez Collette put me in the mood to do something Burgundian with cherries. It was with impatience that I waited for cherry season to come to New England so that I could cook this pork loin—a recipe jotted down from another of Chantal’s Burgundy cookbooks.

Ingredients

• PORK:
• 1 pork loin (approximately 4 pounds), trimmed of all but a very thin layer of surface fat
• 2 teaspoons mixed (pink, green, black, and white) whole peppercorns
• 20 whole cloves
• 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
• 6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• sea or coarse salt to taste
• 1 large onion, coarsely chopped
• 1/2 to 1 cup red Beaujolais wine
• CHERRY SAUCE:
• 1 1/2 pounds pitted Bing cherries
• 2 tablespoons light brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
• 3 tablespoons fresh rosemary, coarsely chopped
• 1 1/2 cups Beaujolais wine
• FINISHING:
• 1/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons kirsch or other cherry-flavored eau de vie
• 2 tablespoons corastarch dissolved in
• 3 tablespoons Beaujolais wine

Details

Servings 6

Preparation

Step 1

1. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Bring the pork loin to room temperature.

2. Combine the peppercorns, 10 of the cloves, and the cinnamon and use a mortar and pestle or small spice grinder to pound or grind them into a coarse powder. Blend together the spices and softened butter to make a paste. With a small sharp knife, make random 1/2-inch deep incisions in 10 spots on the pork loin; insert the remaining 10 cloves. Smear the pork all over with the spiced butter and sprinkle with sea salt. Scatter the chopped onion over the bottom of a flameproof roasting pan and place the pork loin on top. Pour 1/2 cup of Beaujolais into the bottom of the pan.

3. Roast the pork, basting occasionally with the wine and accumulated pan juices, until a meat thermometer inserted in the center of the roast reads at least 160°F, 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 hours. Add more Beaujolais if the bottom of the roasting pan is becoming too dry

4. Meanwhile, make the cherry sauce: Place the cherries, brown sugar, balsamic vinegar, rosemary, and 1/2 cups Beaujolais wine in a large saucepan. Bring to a boil and then simmer, uncovered, stirring
occasionally, for 20 minutes.

5. When the pork is fully cooked, pour 1/3 cup of the kirsch over it, and using caution (stand back and make sure nothing flammable is nearby), light a match and flambé the roast in the pan. When the flames subside, transfer the pork loin to a platter and keep warm in a low oven. Stir the remaining 2 tablespoons kirsch into the cherry sauce.

4. Place the roasting pan on a burner over medium heat. Stir in the dissolved cornstarch and cook to thicken the pan juices. Pour the cherry sauce into the roasting pan and continue to cook until all is blended and slightly thickened, 4 to 5 minutes more.

7. Carve the pork into 1/2-inch thick slices, arrange on a large serving platter, and surround generously with the cherry sauce. Serve at once.