Fine Dining At Home 3/3 - Sage-scented Rhugs Estate Pork Tenderloin

Home plating - much room for improvement!
But I daresay my sous-vide pork tasted better than the one I ate at the event.

And here's the third recipe - Sage-scented Rhugs Estate Pork Tenderloin

Ingredients for prune compote
150g fresh pitted prunes
100 ml whiskey
100 ml water

Ingredients for Scotch eggs
4 quail eggs
1 large egg
20g flour
100g minced pork
20g bread crumbs
1 shallot
1 garlic clove

Ingredients for celeriac puree
1 Celeriac (can be replaced by any hard and root vegetables)
150 ml chicken stock
20g butter

Ingredients for pork tenderloin
100g pork fat net (I skipped this)
1/2 bunch fresh sage
2 rhugs estate pork tenderloin, whole

Ingredients for sauce
1 shallot
1 garlic clove
150g mixed wild mushrooms chopped
250ml whiskey
200ml chicken stock
100ml veal stock (I replaced with beef stock)
100ml double cream

Method for prune compote
1. Roughly chop the prunes.
2. Add into a vacuum pack bag along with whiskey and water.
3. Seal the bag and place in a water bath for 45 min at 65C.

(Note to self: skip step 1 to get whole prunes which look better when plated)

Method for Scotch eggs
(This was super yummilicious and it's worth the effort and time!)
1. Boil the quail eggs in water for 3 minutes, then take out and leave to cool. (I did 2 minutes and still didn't get runny yolks that I wanted. Will try 1 min 20 secs next attempt, as advised by another chef)
2. Season the minced pork with salt and pepper and add any dried herbs and mix well.
3. Take 1 spoonful of the minced pork and place it flat on a board.
4. Peel the egg and put in the center of the minced pork then fold the pork all over the egg and place in the fridge.
5. After an hour, remove the eggs from the fridge and coat with bread crumbs. (Just realised I missed this step!)
6. Dip the wrapped quail in flour, then into a bowl of whisked egg, and finally the bread crumbs again.
7. Deep fry for 2 minutes and set aside.

Method for celeriac puree (I made carrot puree instead)
1. Peel the celeriac and chop up roughly.
2. In a saucepan, add a little butter and the celeriac.
3. Season with salt and stir for 2 minutes.
4. Add 150ml chicken stock and top up wtih water to just cover celeriac.
5. Slowly cook for 1 hour, then quickly cook out the rest of the liquid. (Chef tip: simmer to reduce liquid instead of throwing it away.)
6. Blitz in a bar blender until you have a smooth puree. (Chef tip: must be fully cooked to get smooth puree)

Method for pork tenderloin
1. Lay the pork fat net (stomach lining) flat, then place the sage leaves all over the fat and lay the pork on top.
2. Roll the pork twice in the fat.
3. Add a little oil to a frying pan to cook the pork
4. Season the pork and seal in the pan all over until golden brown.
5. Add a spoon of butter and baste the pork evenly for around 8 min until medium well, then remove from pan.
6. Remove excess fat from the pan but keep it to make the sauce.

As the pork I ate at the event was dry and tough, I decided to sous vide my tenderloin instead of using the above method. 56C for 3 hours, and I got amazingly moist medium pork. My friend who has not eaten pork in a decade, emptied her plate - what a testimony to sous vide.

You know, sous vide is so simple and makes your diners think you can cook like a professional chef. It's so easy I feel like I'm cheating!

Method for sauce
1. Chop the shallot and crush the garlic.
2. Saute them, along with the mushrooms, in the same pan you used for the pork.
3. Add the whiskey (to deglaze) and reduce to a syrup.
4. Now add the stocks and cream, and reduce until a nice glossy sauce is formed.

My sauce turned out too liquid although the taste was acceptable. Felt like there was no time for the reduction to occur when the meat was already being plated and getting cold. Will have to try this again.

Method for plating
1. Place the Scotch egg at the back of the plate.
2. Place dots of celeriac puree all round the edge of the plate.
3. Place 1 spoon of prune compote in the center of the plate.
4. Slice the pork and add the desired amount on top of the prunes.
5. Spoon over the sauce and ready to serve.

Additional chef tip: heat oil very very hot and deep fry small sage leaves for 10 seconds to get dried sage for crisp and maximum flavour, and use it as a garnish on the puree.

I would say the Scotch egg is a must-try - it tasted superb with a lovely Tonkatsu kind of crunch and gooey inside. Sage and pork are also a winning combo to note. Overall, another tedious recipe worthy of your time, effort and attention.

Click here to see
- The MasterChef class event where Chef Lee Bennett presented these 3 recipes
- First recipe: Chilled Tomato Gazpacho with olive oil sorbet and lime vodka jelly
- Second recipe: Pan-fried Scottish Salmon with basil pesto, citrus powder and olive oil dust

Fine Dining At Home 2/3 - Pan-fried Scottish Salmon

 Here's Recipe 2 from Chef Lee Bennett of Equinox Restaurant at Swissotel Stamford in Singapore:

Pan-fried Scottish Salmon with Warm Salad of Beetroot

I got my friends to plate their own dishes - you can tell none of us will make it to Masterchef, but it sure added much more fun to the evening.

If you think the list of ingredients for the first dish was too long, wait till you see this one, with an even longer list in the method. Ready?

Ingredients for citrus powder and olive dust
5 oranges
2 lemons
200g pitted black olives

Ingredients for pan fried Scottish salmon and warm salad of beetroot
2 Charlotte potatoes, large
2 sprigs of rosemary
2 garlic cloves
2 beetroot, large (note to self: just need one)
1 fennel, small
3 radish
1 bunch of wild rocket and frisee
4 x 150g salmon, centre cut

Ingredients for basil pesto
2 bunches of fresh basil
2 garlic cloves (I used 4)
150ml olive oil
100g toasted pine kernels
100g grated parmesan

Method for citrus powder and olive dust
1. Peel orange and lemon skin onto a metal tray.
2. Place in the oven at max 80C and leave overnight. (Totally dehydrate for maximum flavour)
3. Cut the olives into half on to a separate tray and leave to dry with the oranges.
4. Use a clean blender to blend the olives into coarse bits.

Old world charm vs new world food processor

Method for panfried Scottish salmon and warm salad of beetroot
1. Place potatoes to cook in gentle simmering salted water
2. Add some garlic and rosemary. (Optional: Leave in water for up to 2 days for flavour)
3. Once cooked, refresh in cold water and peel the skin off, then dice into 1cm cubes

4. Pour some rock salt on a baking tray, pierce the beetroot and place onto the salt.
5. Cover the tray with a layer of tin foil and cook in the oven at 150C for around 90 minutes. (I cooked for 120 min and they were still too crunchy. Note to self: will increase temp to 200 next time or boil to soften before putting into oven.)
6. Once cooked, remove skin and dice into 1cm cubes. (Store separately from potatoes as they stain.)

7. Thinly shave the fennel and radish into ice cold water using a mandolin.

8. Pick through the wild rocket and frisee, wash and pass through a salad spinner.

9. Put the beetroot and potato into a bowl together and season lightly, dress with olive oil, a pinch of the citrus powder and olive dust.

10. Mix the greens with the fennel and radish, then add a drizzle of olive oil.

11. Season the salmon with salt. (Oops, just realised I didn't do this and it tasted fine!)

12. Add a drizzle of oil into a hot non-stick pan.

13. When hot, place salmon on the pan and cook for 2 minutes. Turn it over and cook for another 2 minutes. (I did one minute on each side to avoid flaky salmon which I don't enjoy. At one minute, I got just past the sashimi stage.)

14. Remove salmon from the pan.

As a side tip, Chef suggested you can add crisp and crunch to the dish by grilling the salmon skin. 60C in the oven overnight. 

Method for basil pesto (key to this dish)
1. Pick the basil.
2. Blanch in boiling water for 30 secs then refresh in ice water.
3. Once cold, remove and squeeze water out completely
4. Place into blender with minced garlic, olive oil, pine kernels and parmesan
5. Blend to a smooth paste. (I blended to rather coarse so I could still bite on the little chunks of nuts which I love)

My pesto was a big hit that night. We ended up eating everything with the pesto, and my friend even placed an order with me! Expensive but oh so very healthy and delish.

The beauty of toasted pine kernels

My big hit that night - home-made pesto with fresh basil from the garden

Plating
1. Spread the basil pesto on a plate in a circular movement.
2. Add 2 Tbsp of the beetroot and ptoato onto the plate followed by a handful of the salad.
3. Top with the salmon then sprinkle the citrus powder and olive dust around the plate.
4. Ready to serve.

So, have I tired you out just reading the ingredient list? For me, I was inspired to try it and found it worth the colossal effort and every minute of my time, and highly rewarding to be feeding my friends good food, real food. Sick as it sounds, I would do this all over again.

Up Next: Recipe 3 Sage-scented Pork Tenderloins

Of Culinary and Marriage Finesse

My husband was getting his regular haircut when he saw this in a magazine and thought of me. Thanks to iPhone and WhatsApp technologies, he could snap a picture and send it to me before the hairdresser was done.

Do you already practise these "cooking secrets that every professional chef swears by"? I'm usually too lazy to do Secret number 4!

While these tips are useful to remember and practise, of course being an old sentimentalist, I cherish that he thought of me while going about his own activity. I'm sharing this picture of us celebrating our recent 22nd wedding anniversary in the best restaurant in Indonesia. Yes, I believe in soul-mates and BFF (best friends forever!) 'cos I married one. Thank you, Lord.

We don't usually look this tense. It was the waiter who almost dropped our camera that resulted in these nervous smiles.