I am a fairly good cook now, but I prefer recipes that need little kitchen time and few ingredients. I don’t care if it takes 4 hours to cook, so long as I don’t have to spend more than 10 minutes in the kitchen. So in this blog I only write about stuff that is easy to make and doesn’t require a large commitment. Here’s my recipe for pork/rice with paprika. This is easily a main course for any meal.

Ingredients

• pork tenderloin: 2 pounds, defrosted
• rice: 1.5 cups, extra long grain, preferably basmati
• powdered paprika: about 2 heaped teaspoons
• powdered cumin: 1 teaspoon
• garlic powder: half a teaspoon
• ginger powder: half a teaspoon
• freshly cracked black pepper: half a teaspoon
• salt: to taste (I usually add 1-1.5 teaspoons)
• 2-3 medium onions, chopped
• 2-3 large green bell peppers, seeds removed, and chopped
• a couple teaspoons of oil: olive oil or canola
• 1 – 1.5 sticks of butter

Method

Start by turning on the oven to 450 degrees, and let the rice soak in a large pot with at least 2 inches of cold water covering it.

In a small bowl, mix all the dry spices and salt. Add enough oil to make a paste. Canola oil is best because of the high oven temperature, though you can use olive oil if you wish. Wash the pork tenderloins in cold running water, pat them completely dry with paper towels. Usually, tenderloins are sold in pairs, so a 2 pound package will have 2 tenderloins of approximately 1 pound each.

Put them in a roasting pan, and spoon the spice/oil mixture over them carefully. Spread the spice/oil paste until it completely covers the surface of the meat, making sure to baste both sides. Then adjust the tenderloins in the roasting pan so that they are about an inch apart, and the fat side is up. Pork tenderloins have very little fat, but they have a silvery membrane with a tiny bit of fat in it. You don’t have to remove the membrane, just put them with whichever side has more of the silvery stuff facing up. Make sure the tenderloins aren’t poking over the edge of the pan – if they are too long for the pan, fold the thinner end under itself so they fit within the pan.

After the oven has preheated to 450 F (the amount of time this can take varies with the oven, it will be at least 15 minutes if not more), put the pan with the tenderloins on a rack in the center of the oven, uncovered. Set the timer for 15 minutes at 450 F, to give the meat time to brown. After 15 minutes, turn the oven down to 250 F. Continue cooking until the internal temperature of the meat reaches about 150 F. This usually takes about an hour at 250 F (not counting the first 15 minutes at 450 F). Don’t cook any longer than an hour at 250 F, or the tenderloins will dry out — remember, tenderloins have very little fat and can easily get dry if you overcook them. After they have cooked, remove the pan from the oven and let it sit on a counter for at least 15 minutes before messing with it any further.

While the tenderloins are cooking, cook the rice. Make sure it’s soaked for at least 30 minutes (45 minutes is better). Then wash the rice in 2-3 changes of cold water. Drain the water, then add a measured 2 cups of cold water to it. Bring it to a boil, then turn the heat to low, cover the pot, and let it cook for 25 minutes. After it’s cooked, remove it from the stove and let it cool down – with the lid on. Do not remove the lid to speed up cooling. It should be allowed to cool for at least 15 minutes before it’s used further.

Melt the butter in a large skillet (has to be large, eventually the rice will be dumped here as well, later in the recipe). Add the chopped onions and chopped green bell peppers, and let them fry in the hot butter until they are slightly brown.

At this point, you could add other spices to the frying onions if you wished. I sometimes add crushed dry red pepper, and some Indian spices, but they are not necessary.

If you time things right, the onions and peppers will finish frying about 15 minutes after the pork tenderloins are done and the rice is cooked. It’s important that both the tenderloins and the rice be allowed to cool on a counter for at least 15 minutes after removing from the stove or oven, before you use them further in the recipe.

Cut the tenderloins into small cubes (I prefer them really small, like quarter-inch cubes), and toss them in the pot with the onions and green peppers. There will be some fat that has drained out into the roasting pan. It’s not a lot, and it’s very flavorful. If you like, you can drain this fat directly into the skillet with the onions as well. If you’re trying to cut down on fat, oh well, don’t bother. Stir everything around for a minute or two.

Finally, dump the rice into the skillet. Turn the heat down to medium-low, stir occasionally to mix the rice in with the meat and fried onions/peppers/spices. The goal is the mix everything thoroughly, to coat the rice grains with butter from the pan so they don’t stick together. It’s now ready to serve.

Just before serving, I like to make a final check on the salt. If you had about 1.5 teaspoons of salt in the original spice rub used for the meat, and if you didn’t toss the liquid that drained out into the roasting pan, but added it to the skillet along with the rice, then you should have enough salt in the prepared dish. But if you tossed the roasting liquid or didn’t have enough salt to begin with, you might want to add a bit more to the skillet at this time. At any rate, you must check for salt before serving, very likely it will need some adjustment. The easiest way to ruin a dish, specially a meat dish, is to not have enough salt. Salt brings out the flavors in meat. I also add some chopped cilantro right before serving, but that’s optional. Mix it all up and serve hot.

Makes about 3-4 servings for hungry adult males. More, if you’re a girl.

Notes

This is very much “comfort food”, which I identify as basically any form of meat (roasted is more “comforty”) plus a starch, suitably salted. The starch could be rice or potatoes, both have their uses. This sort of food has a very primal appeal to our taste buds, possibly going back to when our ancestors first discovered the miracle of cooking, roasting meats and roots at their campfires. Onions and garlic and their botanical kin were probably among the first flavors to be added to food. This is an extra dimension that food holds for me, to be able to use it as a means to relate to our ancestors, to see and smell and taste what they did. Historical food has the same attraction, which is why I sometimes try out historical recipes from Roman times, or medieval food.

Like most stuff with spices, this can be easily refrigerated. If you are cooking for one, simply divide it up into portions in ziplock bags. It easily lasts 2-4 days in the refrigerator. Just nuke it in a microwave before serving.

Learning how to add salt is one of the earliest cooking skills that needs to be mastered. Unless you are following a recipe exactly, you’ll have to make a decision about how much salt to add. This is not a trivial decision; it’s one of the most important things you can do to enhance or ruin the flavor of food.

There is no exact science to it. Use good salt. Iodized salt sucks. I prefer kosher salt for general use, sea salt for specific recipes. Start by tasting whatever you intend to salt, to get a “baseline flavor”. Add salt sparingly, in steps. You can always add more, but taking it away is harder. Don’t dump it on to one spot in the food, sprinkle it evenly across all the food, then mix thoroughly and taste it. Does it taste better than the “baseline” taste? How does it taste different? You sort of have to learn this for yourself, because no one can explain to anyone else what “properly salted” ought to taste like. You have to experience it yourself. Adding salt in steps, a little bit at a time, then checking the taste, is the surest way to learn. After some time, you’ll be able to taste the food once, eyeball the amount of food, and know how much salt to add without measuring a damn thing. But it takes a little bit of practice. To me, the ideal amount of salt is that which makes the food just short of salty. Meaning, I shouldn’t be able to taste the salt specifically (unless I’m eating potato chips), but the flavors in the food should be maximally developed by the salt. You may prefer a bit more, but you will very likely not prefer less. Just experiment a bit and see what you like.