CEiMB: Peppercorn Au Poivre

This week's pick for Craving Ellie in My Belly is from Rachel of Rachel Hearts Food. She chose for us to make the Pork Au Poivre from from The Food You Crave: Luscious Recipes for a Healthy Life by Ellie Krieger. This is a simple recipe where pork tenderloin is coated with Dijon mustard and sprinkled with a generous amount of coarse ground black pepper. The pan is then deglazed with red wine and chicken broth. I made a few changes to the recipe, unfortunately, my local grocery did not have pork tenderloin available for portioning, so I decided to go with thin cut pork loin chops. Additionally, I omitted the wine in the recipe. I didn't have an open bottle, and since I am heading out of town, I didn't want to open a new bottle for just 1/2 of a cup. Therefore, I added a 1/2 teaspoon of Dijon mustard and a pat of light butter to the pan to make the sauce more robust.

This is another winner from Ellie. The sauce is so flavorful, and the black pepper adds a nice heat that burns subtly in the back of your throat. The pork is light and moist, and I added the pork back to the sauce at the end to rewarm the pork to impart more flavor of the sauce into the pork itself. I will be making this again, and I would love to try the sauce with chicken as well. I served my pork with brown rice and roasted vegetable for a delicious, healthy meal.

Thanks again to Rachel, and be sure to check out the Craving Ellie in My Belly blogroll to see what other bloggers did with their recipe.