Whole Grain Mustard Pan Sauce | Sauced

You may have noticed a pattern with "Sauced"—after completing a base ingredient, like last week's whole grain Dijon mustard, it's not long until I'm using it to make a completely new sauce, like this whole grain mustard pan sauce. While the necessity to use my sauces and maintain space in the fridge is the main driver of this behavior, it also tends to be when I come up with some of the most interesting and delicious concoctions.

This sauce upheld that trend, and I was proud that it was built mainly from ingredients I happened to have on hand, combining them in a standard pan sauce method until I had something that was worthy to top a pork tenderloin that I had cooked to a beautiful rosy medium-well.

After the tenderloin was done, which left a nice fond that would later get picked up in the sauce, I sauteed shallots in butter, followed by the addition of flour to create a roux. Then white wine, chicken stock, and mustard were added and cooked until thickened enough to coat a spoon. At this point the sauce was bit harsh and slightly bitter; the addition of heavy cream helped that out, and a final splash of lemon juice brightened up an otherwise very heavy-handed sauce.

With the sauce spooned over the sliced pork, with a side of asparagus, the meal came together very well. The sauce had a deep mustard flavor with an added richness from the wine, stock, and cream that was a strong complement to the pork, but not so overpowering that it hid the flavor of the meat itself. It made my happy that I had put together the Dijon just a week before, because otherwise, this pan sauce probably would have never been on my radar.