Sweet, Sour, Swine!

We're getting closer to the holydays! Every food blog is going crazy about Christmas yuminess. 

Here in Brazil we eat different things for christmas. We eat pork, cod fish, Turkey (we don't have Thanks Giving Day, so Christmas is our Turkey day). You guys have to remember, we're going through summer here! So, we don't actually have hot cocoa, but we do have chocolate desserts!

Since I started here not too long ago, I was getting used to the blogsphere. Now it's my turn to start showing off some of our food. And how about we start off with some Pork Loin? 

I found myself wondering what to do with it... Hmmm... Pork Loin always goes well with something sweet. So... What better than Honey Mustard Marinated Pork?

I absolutely love Honey mustard sauce! And every time I see Honey mustard combined with some meat, is chicken. Every now and then, I start having second thoughts about some kind of meat. At some point, I a disliked any fish. Then, I ate no red meat. Right now, my meat of (no) choice is chicken. It started to make me a little iffy (no, I'm not pregnant, I had me tested). Also, I love to combine different things we don't usualy see together. I never ate pork with Honey mustard, so this dish was created!

Sweet, sour, swine

Materials:

• 1 Pork Loin
• 2 Limes
• butter
• Honey
• Mustard
• salt

Methods:

• Start this recipe on the day before. Rub the pork loin with salt and get the marinate sauce ready.
• Squeeze the juice of one lemon and mix well with honey and mustard. I'm not giving the amount of each, because some people like sweeter, others tangy. I like it sweeter, So I use more honey than mustard. 
• Put the pork in a ziplock bag and pour the honey mustard sauce on it. Close it very tight in a way the sauce is all around the meat. Put it in the refrigerator over night. 
• Two hours before serving, heat the griller and spread some butter on it. 
• Remove the meat from the ziplock very gently. You don't want to waste the marinate sauce. 
• Place the meat in the griller until is golden brown. Especially the side with the fat, you want to get it crispy.

• Squeeze one more lime and mix with more honey and mustard. You can make it in separate, so you can try it, without having to try the one who had the raw meat in it.
• Place the marinate in a baking pan. And place the meat on top of it. Bathe the meat with the marinate every now and then while cooking. Bake it at 200ºC untill the interior is juicy and well cooked

Experimental observations:


You can cover it with aluminiun foil to bake, but remove it at leat for the last 30 min to brown the meat. 

I like to half way slice the meat after some time cooking, this way you cook the inside faster and you get the marinate inside the meat.

And if you half way slice it, the juices of the meat will flow out and flavor the sauce. Some people say this might dry the meat, but if you keep bathing with the sauce this won't happen. 

Use a baking pan  fit for the size of the meat. Too big baking pan, the sauce will dry out very fast. Too small, the sauce might over flow.

I don't have a meat termometer (but I should invest in one), that's why I didn't mentioned the inside temperature of the meat. But if you do Emeril  Lagassesays you should bake until the insides reach 145 F (63ºC).