The problem with pork loin

December 18, 1:11 PMFood ExaminerEric Burkett

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She may look great after losing all that weight, but that
won't help your dinner plans.

Today’s pig is bred for leanness, which is too bad. In our paranoia over fat, that means we get pork without much flavor. It tends to cook up dry, as well, unless you take specific steps to counter that. The positive health aspects of fat – as well as the negatives – are a separate topic and worth exploring, but for now, I want to concentrate on getting as much flavor as possible out of that sorely abused cut, the boneless pork loin.

The pork loin you pick up in nearly any grocery store is probably vacuum sealed and has only a thin layer of fat. To add insult to injury, many processors – tacitly acknowledging their products are flavorless – brine their product which means two things: As much as 12% of what you’re buying is water, and you lose control over the flavoring if they use a seasoned brine.

The first step is to buy unbrined, unseasoned pork loin. If you're fortunate to have a real butcher shop in your community, buy your meat there. Barring that, your next step is to rinse all that junk off the loin and work in a little flavor. One method is easy: using a mixture of kosher or sea salt and fresh ground black pepper, apply a liberal coating over the whole loin, rubbing it in as much as possible. Then take a few strips of raw bacon, drape them over the top of the loin, and then roast it in a slow oven at 250 degrees until the inside is just pink (Common wisdom is that pork should be cooked well done, but trichinosis is virtually unknown in the United States). You won’t need much salt – if any – in the spice mixture because the meat has already been soaking in a brine solution and the bacon, of course, will contribute even more salt.

Another option, and my favorite, is to butterfly the loin and then stuff it with the following mixture and tie it.

¼ cup olive oil
¼ cup fresh rosemary
4 cloves whole garlic
Zest of 1 lemon
Kosher salt and fresh ground pepper

Preheat oven to 250 degrees.

• Place all the ingredients except the salt and pepper into a food processor and pulse until you have something reasonably resembling a paste.
• With the pork loin rolled out flat, spread about half the paste over the meat. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
• Roll the loin into as tight a log as you can, and then tie it up. Rub the rest of the paste over the entire loin, and then sprinkle generously with more black pepper.
• From here, you can either sear the loin in a skillet to give it a nice bit of caramelization, or just pop it directly into the oven. Roast the loin until it reaches an internal temperature of 140 degrees, or until the interior is just pink.
• After you pull the roast from the oven, let it rest for about 20 minutes. In that time, the roast will reabsorb its juices and will continue cooking, as well as bringing the internal temperature of the meat to about 145 degrees.

Plenty of people are fed up with the poor quality meat that comes from the major meat processors. Besides being flavorless, there are real issues around the treatment of the animals before they're slaughtered to say nothing of the slaughtering practices. Responding to that concern, many farmers have begun raising "heritage" pigs - traditional breeds with plenty of natural fat who eat good food and are raised and slaughtered humanely. You can learn more about it with these links: M & B Fairview Farms, Sugar Mountain Farm, Cedar Meadow Farm, Hang Belly Ranch, and Heritage Food USA.