A Sous-Vide cooked Pork Tenderloin with Cherry Sauce brings the sun of Andalusia into your plate! A elegant yet powerful dish made with Cherry and Sherry!
The magic in this Pork Tenderloin with Cherry Sauce dish is the sauce, a pure delight for the tastebuds. Sherry and cherry sounds similar but they are far from being similar in taste, the sherry is dry and the cherry sweet. Mixing those two together and you’ll get a divine combination. This is a recipe from the South of Spain, Andalusia, where the famous sherry is from.
Andalusia
Andalusia is a strong, bold and passionate place, just like it’s fortified wines and gastronomy. There are 4 main types of sherry, 2 mild ones; the Manzanilla and the Fino and 2 darker ones, richer and nuttier; the Amontillado and the Oloroso. The last one, Oloroso, is the richest of them all, and the one used in this recipe. If you ever visit the south of Spain, make sure to stop by a Sherry Solera in the Jerez region, it’s worth the trip! Those pyramidal barrel systems, always mixing old and new sherry from time to time in the contrasting massive cold buildings is a great experience. Ok, I’m flying away… sorry… let’s get back to the recipe.
Oven or Sous-vide
I’ve made my tenderloin sous-vide but it could easily be made in the pan and up in the oven to finish it up. You could use other cuts as well, and simply fry it in the pan. The idea here was more about making the sauce that goes well with the pork.
So let’s make this rich Andalusian flavored dish going!
Pork Tenderloin with Cherry Sauce
Ingredients
- 1 whole pork tenderloin
- 100 ml Sherry
- 15 cherries (ripe and pitted)
- 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
- 1 tbsp cornstarch
- 2 French shallots (finely chopped)
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 tbsp honey or maple syrup
- 1 garlic clove (finely chopped)
- 50 ml chicken broth
- 10 g butter
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- salt and pepper
Instructions
- Cook the tenderloin sous-vide at 58°C (135F) for 2 hours (thick piece) for a well cooked, 54°C for medium-rare with salt and pepper.
- In a sauce pan, add the shallots with the olive oil and salt, cook them slowly until translucent.
- Add the pitted cherries, sherry, broth, vinegar, water, honey, garlic and laurel to the saucepan and reduce, at medium-high heat, for 10 minutes.
- Mash good the cherries so they give their juice.
- Pass the sauce through a sieve and push down with a spoon to collect all the juice.
- Add the sauce back to a clean sauce pan and add the cornstarch mix (cornstarch mixed with 3 tbsp of cold water).
- Let simmer until thickens (when it covers the back of a spoon).
- Take off the heat and add the butter, mix well.
- Sear the whole piece of tenderloin, high heat , on every side.
- Cut into nice thick pieces and serve with the cherry sherry sauce (if cooked sous-vide, no need to wait before cutting into the tenderloin, if done otherwise, wait 10-15 minutes before cutting into it).
