Serious Eats: Recipes
Cook the Book: Pork Soffrito with Spicy Peppers and Cabbage
"The final dish is a happy meeting of opposites: hot and cold, sweet and sour, cooked and raw."
This Pork Soffrito with Spicy Peppers and Cabbage is a one-plate meal that combines ingredients I never would have thought to add together. And I have to say, it's one of the most satisfying meals I've had in a while.
Thankfully, Michael Psilakis did all the leg work and laid out the framework for this fantastic winter recipe in How to Roast a Lamb.
The dish is reminiscent of a scaloppine or saltimbocca but the flavors are all Greek. Thinly pounded slices of pork tenderloin are floured, fried, and topped with a sauce made from the pan juices along with white wine, capers, shallots, and the uniquely Greek pickled yellow peppers known as pepperoncini. The pan-fried tenderloin would be a stand-alone dish with the addition of the pan sauce but Psilakis pairs the dish with a salad that's all at once perfect and totally unexpected.
A salad of savoy cabbage, orange segments, green olives, fennel, red onion, parsley, and dill dressed with a simple vinaigrette completes the dish. Psilakis serves the salad on top of the pork rather than on the side. This is a genius move—the dressing from the salad adds another note of acidity to the meat and the heat from the pork wilts the cabbage ever so slightly. The final dish is a happy meeting of opposites: hot and cold, sweet and sour, cooked and raw.
Win How to Roast a Lamb
As always with our Cook the Book feature, we have five (5) copies of How to Roast a Lamb to give away this week.
