This is like the most quintessential meat and three veg-type of dish I am putting on my blog. Mostly because it is homey and comforting, but I wanted to plate it in a more elegant and whimsical way. I wanted to do another pork loin dish, but in terms of what I wanted to pair it with, I was leaning towards fennel and green apple to create this lighter, fresher contrast. I also wanted to use up some potatoes lying around, and while yes, I did make a pomme puree, I also tourne’d some potato and crisped those up in olive oil, kind of like a confit pomme tourne. Tourne is a French term that means “turn”. Yes, these potatoes are technically turnt, and what that means is that you take a paring knife and shave them down into little football-shaped pieces. Tourne is a very outdated classical French technique, very hard to do(when I practiced doing tourne on turnips years ago, I got a very nasty cut), but it does allow for more surface area for a vegetable to cook evenly. Plus it is a mild ego boost/flex to do it properly(I will be honest, these tourne weren’t perfect, but they were as good as I was willing to try for). With the potato scraps from whittling away these shapes, I turned those into the pomme puree that the seared pork loin sits on top of. I also paired that with a fennel-apple jus, and some shaved green apple and fennel salad, just to brighten everything up!

In terms of technical difficulty, the main challenge is doing the pommes(potato) tourne. That is extremely challenging without a paring knife, and still really tricky with one, so if you do not want to do that, just do a medium dice on the potatoes or scoop out balls with a melon baller and cook those in the olive oil. With the puree, that was just made with the scraps of potato and it comes together quite nicely with some milk, the leftover confit oil from the pommes tourne, and some garlic. With the pork loin, I simply seared and roasted it, but if you are uncomfortable cooking pork, just use a meat thermometer and make sure that the internal temperature reaches at least 135 degrees F before attempting to rest and slice it. The general rule of thumb is to rest the meat for half the time you cooked it so it won’t bleed, so keep that in mind. With the sauce, it is essentially a pan sauce using the same pan that the pork loin was cooked in, but deglazed with shaoxing cooking wine, then mixed in with an apple-fennel-beef stock reduction to finish. With the fennel-green apple slaw, that is dressed with some apple cider vinegar, and finished with olive oil, salt, and fennel pollen to add some freshness, crunch, and texture so that the dish does not eat too hearty and rich!

Makes 3-4 portions:
For the pomme tourne:
2 Russet potatoes
3 cloves garlic
2oz olive oil
a pinch of salt
a pinch of black pepper

Peel and cut the Russet potatoes into 1/2 inch by 1/4 inch by 1/4 inch rectangles. Any peeled potato scraps at this point, store in cold water. Using a paring knife, carefully shave down the edges of the potatoes to round them out into curved football shapes with 8 sides. In a pot with boiling salted water, boil the tourne’d potatoes for 2 minutes. In another pot, heat up 3 smashed and peeled garlic cloves with olive oil and salt on low heat. Transfer the potatoes into the oil and cook the potatoes on medium-low heat for 15 minutes – the end result should be crispy and golden brown. Drain the potatoes on a paper towel and season with salt and pepper to finish. Reserve the oil to use for the pomme puree.

For the pomme puree:
3 parts reserved potato scraps
1 part reserved confit oil
1 part milk
a pinch of salt

Boil the remaining potato scraps in heavily salted boiling water for anywhere from 5-8 minutes. Drain the potatoes and pass them through a sieve and to break down any larger lumps. At this point measure out the potatoes so that you can get exact measurements for the remaining ingredients; I preferred doing 3 parts of potato to 1 part each of the confit oil and the milk for a buttery-rich texture. Mix the sieved potatoes in a pot on low heat with the remaining ingredients to form your puree. Season with salt to finish.

For the fennel-green apple reduction:
1 green apple
2oz diced fennel
.1oz peeled and sliced ginger
1 shallot, peeled and diced
1 bay leaf
2 tbsp oil
a pinch of salt
2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
8oz beef stock

Peeled and core the green apple, reserving the core and peels for the sauce. Slice the green apple into thin strips and store in cold salted water in the refrigerator.

In a pot, sweat out the apple peels, core, fennel, ginger, shallot, and bay leaf in oil on medium heat, adding salt as these ingredients start to cook down and become tender. Add first the apple cider vinegar, allowing that to cook down for 2 minutes. Then pour in the beef stock and cook everything on medium heat for 10 minutes, bringing down the liquid by half. Then cover the pot and allow everything to steep together on low heat for another 10 minutes. Strain out all of the solids, reserving the liquid to use for the pan sauce.

For the pork loin:
1 pork loin
a pinch of paprika
a pinch of oregano
a pinch of thyme
a pinch of salt
a pinch of black pepper
a pinch of fennel pollen
1 tbsp canola oil

Coat the pork loin in the other spices; fortunately all of these spices aren’t terribly overpowering like cumin or nutmeg, so really any ratio of them will due, just to get the seasonings onto the pork. Heat up a cast iron pan with some canola oil. Sear the pork on medium-high heat for 4 minutes then flip the loin and sear on the other side for another 4 minutes. Sear the sides of the loin for 1 minute each. Transfer the pork to a roasting rack and roast in a 400 degree F oven for 15 minutes. Allow the pork to rest at room temperature for at least 5 minutes before attempting to slice. Reserve the cast iron for the pan sauce.

For the pan sauce:
Reserved cast iron from the pork loin
1 tbsp shaoxing cooking wine
Apple-fennel reduction

Heat up the cast iron with the cooking wine on medium heat, stirring with a spatula to remove any of the browned bits on the bottom of the pan. Add to that the apple-fennel reduction, stirring everything on low heat and allowing the liquid to reduce by roughly 1/4. Keep the sauce warm for plating.

For the apple-fennel vinaigrette:
2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 tbsp reserved confit oil
a pinch of salt
a pinch of fennel pollen

Mix everything together to form your vinaigrette.

For garnish:
Reserved green apple
Shaved fennel bulb; use the thinnest setting of a mandolin for this!
Fennel fronds

To plate, start with quenelles of the puree, three in total, scatted on a flat plate. Place on top of each quenelle two thinly sliced pieces of the pork loin. Then offsetting that, place down three tournes of the potatoes. Toss the green apple and shaved fennel in your prepared apple-fennel vinaigrette. Garnish the tops of the tournes with fennel fronds, and then the tops of the pork with shaved apple-fennel salad. Place the sauce directly in the center of the three mounds of pork and puree to finish.