Spiced Pork Roast with Pomegranate Sauce

Sometimes I like to pretend I'm on  Iron Chef America, especially when I have an ingredient I don't know what to do with. I cheat though, a lot. I don't give points for presentation and I usually look up a recipe first which nullifies the originality points. There was a pork roast in the fridge. I pulled out my Epicurious App for the iPhone and enter, "Pork" + "Dinner" + "Healthy" + "Main Course," and it provided me with the recipe for dinner tonight.

There were only 18 results, and one of them called for pomegranate juice. It just so happens that we had a bottle of it in the fridge...and we hate it! This killed two birds with one stone - 1) use the pork tenderloin, 2) get rid of, but not waste, the juice in the fridge. Huzzah!

Ingredients

Ground Cumin

Ground Cinnamon

Black Pepper

Salt

Pork Tenderloin (ours was approx. 1 pound)

Olive Oil

1 Cup pomegranate juice

3/4 teaspoon corn starch

1 Tablespoon water

1 Tablespoon unsalted butter

Procedure

1. Mix together cumin, pepper, salt and cinammon

2. Pat tenderloin dry

3. Cover tenderloin in spices

4. Heat olive oil in skillet over moderate heat (don't let it start to smoke)

5. Cook pork turning occasionally (we turned it every 3 minutes or so)

6. Remove from heat when internal temp reaches 145 degrees F

7. Allow to rest before slicing

For the Sauce

1. Pour and discard any fat from the skillet used to cook the pork

2. Pour in pomegranate juice and boil on high heat (approx 3 minutes, or until you reduce to 2/3 cup)

3. Mix corn starch and water in a separate dish

4. Pour into juice and continue boiling until it thickens (1-2) minutes.

5. Remove from heat and swirl in butter

6. Run sauce through a mesh sieve and skim off any fat (we didn't have any)

Pictures!

The spice team

Mmmm dinner!

Spices on the pork

Team: Sauce

Letting the meat rest with its aluminum foil tent

Making the sauce

Straining

The importance of straining

Plated!

As you can see we strained into a measuring cup. This made it super easy to pour the sauce over the meat. We also added some salt to the sauce and it helped temper some of the tartness of the pomegranates. 

I served this with brown rice because I really didn't know what to serve with it. We didn't have a veggie because I was at a total loss of what would go with it. Marc's main complaint was, "I wish I had a veggie with it," and I have to concur with him. I'm still not sure what I would have put with it - carrots maybe? 

Overall the dish was pretty tasty. The jury is still out on whether to make it again or not, and if so would there be any changes. I am, however, thoroughly enjoying trying out new things and breaking out of the rut we were in for our dinner routine.

What ingredients perplex you? What do you use to find new things to make?