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Broiled Pork Tenderloin
Pork tenderloins which are to be broiled should be wiped with a damp cloth, and dipped into melted butter, laid on the broiler and dusted with salt and pepper before broiling. Garnish with the potatoes straws.
Four sentences from a period when pork tenderloin was a butcher's cut, not a supermarket staple, and "broiler" meant a hinged wire gridiron held over live coals. The method translates cleanly once you sort out the heat source and the doneness target.
- What the broiler wasIn this period a broiler was a hinged wire basket set over coals or a very hot range top, cooking both sides at once. Under a modern overhead broiler or on a grill, cook about 4-5 inches from the element and turn the meat once.
- The cut is smaller than you thinkA whole pork tenderloin runs 3/4 to 1 1/4 lb and is thick at one end, tapered at the other. For even broiling, either slice it crosswise into 1-inch medallions and press them flat, or butterfly the whole loin lengthwise so it lies at a uniform thickness.
- DonenessThis is the point that has changed most. Cook to 145F at the center and rest 3 minutes; the meat will be faintly pink and juicy. Older cookery drove pork to grey-white out of trichinosis fear, which is what gave lean pork its reputation for dryness.
- TimingMedallions want roughly 3 minutes a side over high heat. A butterflied whole tenderloin runs 5-7 minutes a side. Use a thermometer rather than the clock, since tenderloins vary in thickness far more than in weight.
- Melted butter will smokeButter browns and burns at broiling temperature. Brush it on thinly, or use clarified butter, or oil the meat and finish with butter off the heat if you want the flavor without the scorch.
- Salt earlier if you canThe recipe salts just before cooking, which is fine. Salting 30-45 minutes ahead and refrigerating uncovered gives better seasoning through the meat and a drier surface that browns faster.
- Potato strawsThe recipe's definite article points to a garnish given elsewhere in the book. Potato straws are potatoes cut into fine matchsticks and fried crisp in deep fat; salt them the moment they leave the fat.
- YieldOne whole tenderloin serves two generously or three modestly. Plan on 6 oz raw weight per person, since the cut has almost no fat or bone loss.
Pork tenderloin appears in American cookbooks of this period as a small, prized, quickly cooked cut in a chapter otherwise dominated by roasts, boiled hams and salt pork. The brevity of the entry suggests a book written for a cook who already knew how to manage a broiler over coals and needed only the particulars for this piece of meat. Before mechanical refrigeration was general, fresh pork tended to be eaten in the cold months after hog-killing, while much of the rest of the animal went into brine, smoke or the lard kettle. The potato-straw garnish (pommes pailles) is a French restaurant borrowing appearing in an American domestic kitchen.