Okay so here it was the day after NYE. January 1, 2010… Today was the day, the day I would start my one project that I would actually finish! From Las Vegas Nevada baby!
Fortunately for me I had purchased almost everything I needed for this culinary delight before the NYE party, because I’m sure in my state I would have bought cotton balls instead of mushrooms if I had gone shopping after that party my brother threw.
So even though I was hung over from hell and back I decided that I would forge forth and start my first attempt at one of my idol’s dishes. In my normal fashion I went for broke right away of course! Conger eel HAHAHAHA NO! I picked one of the dishes that I thought I could easily pull off with as little crying as possible.
We invited some of my brothers friends over and the first one to arrive was Sarah (real names are hidden to protect those who may not want to be blogged about) She asked me about my project and I promptly opened up my laptop to let her read about what she was about to innocently expose her palette to. I heard a few giggles and then she got quiet and I turned around and that’s when she looked at me like a deer in the headlights and said
“you’re not cooking eel are you?” I couldn’t help but laugh so much it made my poor aching head hurt even more. No I told her, that I’d never expose anyone to something like that without full knowledge that it would be okay, and since I am still uncertain of this eel thing myself I wouldn’t do that. The dish I had chosen this night was a pork tenderloin stroganoff. Pork in my opinion is a relatively hard meat to ruin, well of course you can become so paranoid of under cooking pork that you dry it out to a shoe leather like substance, however I’ve never encountered anyone who could royally f*ck up a tender loin.
I had decided that if I was going to do this I would do it in a professional manner and prepped everything before hand, all the slicing dicing etc. I think the key ingredient in this meal was the smoked paprika, I tossed the meat in this along with the other things and set it aside while i finished preparing the other items for this dish. I was really amazed at how much fun I had putting all this together because normally I hate being my own sous chef, but as I sat cutting and mixing and putting bowls of things together.. I could smell the ingredients coming together and it was a pure delight, I could really see why there is a cook book out there called “the joy of cooking”
Now it was time to cook… heat the olive oil…. put in the pork…. *SIZZLE* the kitchen filled up with the most delicious smell I think I had ever experienced, people came in and asked if it was ready! Serious, that was just the meat. The rest I won’t say simply because I wouldn’t divulge a recipe from a book as the last thing I would ever want is to hear from Gordon Ramsay…. through his legal team. You’ll just have to come for dinner!
Dinner was served with olive oil and garlic fresh fettuccine and peas. Rave reviews for the meal all around.
Personal observation: Since I made the dish a little larger than called for I should have used a bit more cream for a more fluid sauce and looking at the picture a personal note to self to not use canned peas in any thing I plan on taking pictures of. Though having said that, I do love canned peas… so shoot me.
