Friday, February 18, 2011

A Spicy Dinner Party

In an earlier post I had mentioned that I had people over for dinner and had trouble with herniated eggs.  Well, despite all that I was able to get enough hard-boiled egg halves to make a plate of them.  They must have been good because by the time I got my camera to take a picture they were already over half gone.

Obviously A Crowd Pleaser


I just used a simple recipe this time, about an equal part of mayonaise and yellow mustard, a few dashes of soy sauce, and a few generous dollops of Martha's Old Fashion Original Recipe Chipotle Salsa.  I like this Chipotle Salsa (actually more of a sauce, like a hot sauce) so much I always bring back several bottles.  You can get it in the United States, but it is less than 1/3 the price here in Mexico.

For the main dish I prepared a nice loin of lamb.  I bought it at a little butcher shop and the next time I visit I will take a few pictures to post.  Really a nice piece of meat.

I don't have my full contingent of spices down here so I couldn't make one of my own spice rubs.  Instead I relied on Martha again and used her 100% Natural Chipotle Salsa Mix.  Instead of following her recipe to actually make salsa I just rubbed it into the pork loin.

A Rubbed Down Loin


Now the creative part was figuring out how to roast it.  Again, none of my usual stuff, roasting pan, meat rack, things like that, so I had to improvise.

I bought an pot large enough for the loin, but couldn't find any suitable meat rack.  Instead I took apart a wire clothes-hanger and cut it in two.  Then I wrapped aluminum foil around the pieces and constructed kind of a hanger thing for the pot.

Quite Ingenious, I Thought


I put a bunch of small potatoes in the bottom of the pan to catch the drippings for flavor and then postioned the pork loin on the hanger thing.

Ready For The Oven


Doing a bit of math I calculated the Celsius equivalent of the appropriate cooking temperatures, 500 and 250 degrees Farenheit (260 and about 120)  I heated up the oven to the 260 and then stuck in the loin for about five minutes to give it a nice brown crust.  Then I lowered the temperature to 120 and roasted the pork loin until it hit an internal temperature of 140 degrees Farenheit.  I did bring my Williams-Sonoma Remote Thermometer, one of my most useful kitchen and barbecueing gadgets) from home to get a precise reading.  When it hit 140 degrees Farenheit I took it out of the oven, tented it with aluminum foil and let it rest for about 20 minutes so the juices could all seep back in.  The result, a perfectly done and deliciously juicy roasted pork loin.

And Delicious It Was


Nothing Left But To Dig In


You should know most of this crowd by now, Bella, the Mysterious Chinese Woman, Peter and his wife Marie.  Unfortunately Bella's husband Tom was a bit under the weather so he couldn't join us.  I did send a nice piece of the pork loin home with Bella so he wouldn't miss out entirely.

Bella brought a cheesecake for dessert, Marie brought a salad, and the Mysterious Chinese Woman sauteed some mushrooms that she either found growing on a log somewhere or simply conjured into existence.  She was a bit cagey about it.  All and all it was a wonderful dinner. And the visions we had, attributable to the mushrooms, were fantastic as well.

1 comment:

Aaron Smith said...

I like this post