Pork tenderloin medallions in creamy mushroom sauce
The tenderest cut of pork, sliced into thick medallions, seared brown and finished for a few minutes in a sauce of button mushrooms, onion and two dried forest mushrooms that give it woodland depth. The whole art is not to overcook: tenderloin is done at 63 °C, faintly pink in the middle, and that is when it is juicy. A Sunday dinner in an hour, most of which is the mushrooms soaking.
Your own work in that: 35 min.
- Mushrooms soaking 30 min
- Searing 10 min
- Sauce 15 min
- Finishing in the sauce 10 min
Step by step
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Soak the dried mushrooms
Cover the dried mushrooms with 100 ml warm water and leave 30 minutes. Keep the water; it becomes part of the sauce liquid. Meanwhile put the potatoes on or make the dumplings.
Ingredients: 2 pcs dried forest mushrooms · 400 g button mushrooms · 1 pcs onion · 2 cloves garlic · 30 g butter · 1 tbsp plain flour · 200 ml stock · 150 ml whipping cream (30%) · ½ tsp marjoram or thyme · ½ pcs lemon, juice · ½ bunch flat-leaf parsley · ½ tsp salt · ¼ tsp black pepper
TipTwo mushrooms are enough. The point isn't a sauce as mushroomy as Christmas Eve soup, only to give the button mushrooms the forest base they lack on their own.
Two mushrooms, half a cup of warm water
Cut the tenderloin into medallions
Remove the silver skin with a sharp knife: slide the tip under the membrane and cut flat along the meat. Cut into medallions 3 cm thick and press each lightly with your palm to an even height. Salt and pepper both sides and leave 10 minutes at room temperature.
Ingredients: 600 g pork tenderloin · 1 tsp salt · ½ tsp freshly ground black pepper · 2 tbsp oil · 20 g butter
TipThe silver skin doesn't soften in cooking and pulls the medallion into a curve. Removing it takes a minute and changes both the look and the texture.
No silver skin, three centimetres, even height
Sear until browned
Heat the oil with the butter in a large pan over high heat until the butter stops foaming. Sear the medallions 2 minutes a side, without moving them, until they take on a deep golden crust. If they don't fit loosely in the pan, sear them in two batches. Lift onto a plate; the centres are still raw, as they should be.
Two minutes a side, without moving
Make the sauce in the same pan
Lower the heat to medium, add the butter, the diced onion and the sliced mushrooms. Fry 8 minutes, until the mushrooms release their water and brown again. Add the garlic and the soaked mushrooms finely chopped; after a minute sprinkle with the flour and stir. Pour in the mushroom water (leaving the sediment) and the stock, scraping the browned meat juices off the bottom. Simmer 3 minutes.
Ingredients: 2 pcs dried forest mushrooms · 400 g button mushrooms · 1 pcs onion · 2 cloves garlic · 30 g butter · 1 tbsp plain flour · 200 ml stock · 150 ml whipping cream (30%) · ½ tsp marjoram or thyme · ½ pcs lemon, juice · ½ bunch flat-leaf parsley · ½ tsp salt · ¼ tsp black pepper
TipThe brown bits left in the pan after the meat are the most valuable part of the sauce. Liquid and a wooden spoon dissolve them.
Mushrooms browned, forest mushrooms, flour, liquid
Add the cream and season
Pour in the cream, add the marjoram, salt and pepper. Simmer over low heat 3 minutes, until the sauce thickens slightly and coats a spoon. Taste and add the lemon juice: acid balances the richness of the cream.
Cream, marjoram, lemon at the end
Finish the medallions in the sauce
Return the medallions to the sauce with any juices from the plate. Cover and cook over low heat for 5 minutes, turning once. They are done at 63 °C in the centre: faintly pink, springy to the touch. If the thermometer reads lower, cook 1–2 minutes more. Without a thermometer: cut one open, the centre should be pale pink and moist, neither red nor grey.
TipTenderloin has very little fat. Between juicy and dry there are only a few degrees; 63 °C and a few minutes of rest give safe, faintly pink meat. It turns grey and tough above 70 °C.
Five minutes covered, 63 °C
Serve
Spoon the sauce and medallions over dumplings or potatoes, sprinkle with parsley. A sauerkraut salad or beetroot alongside. The sauce keeps 2 days in the fridge; reheat the meat in the sauce, briefly, so it doesn't toughen.
Ingredients: 800 g potatoes or potato dumplings
On dumplings, with parsley
Before you start
With white wine
Before the stock, pour in 100 ml dry white wine and reduce by half. The sauce gains a little acidity and more depth.
With forest mushrooms
In autumn, 400 g fresh bay boletes or chanterelles instead of button mushrooms. Fry chanterelles briefly, about 4 minutes, so they don't turn rubbery.
The meat came out dry
Too long in the sauce or medallions too thin. Three centimetres and five minutes over low heat; if they must wait, turn off the heat and leave them covered.
Nutrition
per 100 gStep photos are computer-generated from the recipe.
