Rosemary Roasted Pork Tenderloin

This was originally published at What I Eat on 6 September 2007. We were living in Walnut Creek, California, at the time. With my recent trip to the Minerva Pork Shop in Secunderabad, we have a lot of pork tenderloin in the freezer so I went through my old posts for some ideas of what to do with it. Look for Local Notes at the end of the post to see how I modify the recipe for Hyderabad. 

A couple years ago I came home with a handful of fresh, beautiful rosemary from farmers' market and had no idea what to do with it. (I tend to make impulse produce purchases.) A Google search for rosemary recipes led me to this one on About.com.

INGREDIENTS:
2 pork tenderloins, about 2 pounds [1 kg]
3 tablespoons fresh rosemary, or about 1 tablespoon dried
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 cloves garlic, halved
salt and pepper to taste

PREPARATION: Preheat oven to 400°. Line a baking pan with foil, spray with cooking spray and place in oven. Trim fat from pork tenderloins and butterfly the meat, cutting them nearly in half lengthwise. Open the pork tenderloins and lay out, pounding to flatten with the palm of the hand or the bottom of a heavy skillet.

Chop rosemary if using fresh. Rub pork tenderloins all over with cut sides of garlic halves then olive oil, then sprinkle rosemary on both sides.

Remove baking pan from the oven and place pork on hot tray. Return to oven and roast for about 20 minutes (about 155° to 160° internal temp). Remove and let stand 5 minutes, then slice.

Rosemary roasted pork tenderloin serves 4 to 6.

We've modified it a bit for ourselves. Last night for the first time we did just one tenderloin, and it worked out much better for our dinner and leftovers needs. I always forget to spray the aluminum foil with oil and it doesn't seem to matter. We love garlic, so we use several cloves sliced into spears, and stick them into the meat for roasting.

On the side I had a small plate of red pepper slices and cucumber spears; it's still summer after all, so we should be eating lots of cool, crisp veggies. I also roasted some potatoes -- a handful of fingerlings, a purple one, and a sweet potato -- with salt and pepper, and I tossed in one of the rosemary sprigs.

Local Notes 
In Hyderabad I’m more likely to throw in some carrots and small onions for roasting (they look sort of like shallots to me, but are called madras onions I think) along with whatever potatoes I find at the store. During the winter I love the pink local carrots that come into season but throughout the year I can find very tasty regular orange carrots. The tenderloins I get here are much smaller than what you’ll find in the United States. Rosemary can often be found at Qmart, Nature’s Basket, or Tarkari.