Peppered pork-fillet with tangy peanut-butter-pomegranate sauce

On January the Secret Recipe Club took a hiatus to allow for quieter holidays for most of us but not for our hosts. They have been working behind the scenes to update the whole machine. The head-master of the whole process is Amanda of Amanda's Cookin'.
Destiny wants that I was the one chosen to cook out of her blog this month.
It did take a little bit for me to find what to propose you out of her recipes, not because she doesn't have appealing recipes but rather because I was mostly attracted by her cheesecakes.
Amanda has a major collection of great cheesecake recipes that await to be tried and indulged upon. Being them my all time favorite dessert I naturally had my eyes fixed on some of her interpretations, like the Chocolate Chip Ricotta Cheesecake or the Tiramisu one. But I need to steer away from sugars in this period so I had to force myself and keep on looking through her archive.
The search stopped when I found her: Black pepper beef in Peanut sauce stir-fry recipe.
Chances are that I had just bought a pork fillet and was getting ready to cook it so I decided to tweak a little bit Amanda's recipe.

The body of her sauce is mostly based on oyster & soy sauce (aside peanut-butter naturally) but since I don't have oyster-sauce in the house I decided to use (actually do) a little mushroom stock to provided some base umami.



Her sauce required also some ginger to be added to it but the tiny rhizomes I had bought decided to disappear in the mess on top of my counter and so I forgot about it. At the tasting I honestly didn't find my sauce needed it since I used pomegranate molasses in it that provided some fruity sourness. The toasted sesame oil just complete and bridges the molasses with the peanut butter.

My idea was to render this dish a perfect St. Valentine's dinner option, I figured I would finger-paint a heart with the pomegranate molasses on the plate and then serve the dish. All dreams broke on the realization that pomegranate molasses is an unappealing brown color.
The dish is still very fit for St. Valentine though no red is in it (you can always add a tad of red food-coloring to the sauce to make it more appealing or scatter some pomegranate seeds over it).

Peppered pork-fillet with tangy peanut-butter-pomegranate sauce


Ingredients (serve 2):

• 250g pork fillet, cut into medallions
• Mixed cracked peppercorns (for instance black and lemon peppercorns)

For the sauce:

• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 1/2 teaspoon Sherry vinegar
• 1/2 tablespoon pomegranate molasses
• 1 tablespoon smooth peanut butter
• 1/2 tsp roasted sesame oil
• 3/4 cup mushroom stock
• 1 clove of garlic, roughly chopped
• 1 tablespoon cream

• salt and pepper

Method:
In a little bowl mix the cracked peppercorns with some salt and spread over a flat surface. Press the pork medallions in the pepper mixture pressing them down to coat properly, flip them over and coat also the other side. Set the pork aside while you heat-up a stainless-steel sauté pan over medium fire.
In the meantime whisk  all the sauce ingredients, except the cream, until well combined and set aside.


When the pan is nicely hot, place the pork medallions on it and let them cook for a couple minutes until then won't stick anymore to the pan. Flip the medallions over and keep cooking them for another couple of minutes. Transfer the meat on a plate, cover with aluminum paper and set aside in a warm oven while you prepare the sauce.


Deglaze the sauté pan with a little hot water scraping clean its bottom. Add the pan juices to the sauce ingredients and whisk until well combined. Transfer the sauce on the pan (or a smaller saucepan) and slowly bring it to a simmer. Cook it until it will thicken, add then the drippings from the resting meat and the cream. Taste the sauce for seasoning.
To serve place a little sauce on each serving plate followed by the pork medallions and more sauce on top.


This dish is perfect served with some steamed broccoli seasoned with grated ginger and olive oil.