From the ArcaMax Publishing, Recipes by Zola Newsletter:
http://www.arcamax.com/news/zola/s-352150-583809
Italy and Beyond
The cruise itinerary took us beyond the western coast of Italy. Our
first stop farther south was Malta. Now, Malta has never hit my list
of vacation destinations. After being there for just a day I have set
a goal to go back. I was that impressed. I now consider it a "must
see". Malta is stunning. Maybe it was the weather. Perfectly sunny and
about 70 degrees. Maybe it had a bit to do with our tour guide who was
a Maltese man with quite the personality.
Malta is referred to as the "honey country". Over the centuries they
have produced a lot of honey there and one of the things I was taken
with was the honey-colored buildings. Everything is built out of a
beige, particularly sturdy, form of sandstone. It makes all of the
buildings 'coordinate' like a well-chosen outfit. The skinny alley
ways filled with shops look fascinating. I didn't get to explore a lot
of them but the ones I did had varied goods from all over the
Mediterranean.
Malta is strategically located in the Mediterranean Sea, north of
Africa, and not far south of Sicily (Italy). Because of the location
as a port and protector of the Mediterranean, it was conquered over
and over again. Ruling parties included the Sicilians, Romans,
Phoenicians, Byzantines.... These influences carry over into the
architecture, cuisines, religion and more.
While in Malta we toured a beautiful section called the Barrakka
Gardens and a magnificent cathedral. If there's one thing I got plenty
of on this trip it was cathedrals.
Because of my previous back surgery, it was ideal to take a cruise.
That way we didn't have to move luggage very often. I was also able to
go on tours off of the ship that were half-day excursions and then
come back to the ship to rest before dinner. The tour guides in each
city did a good job of passing along information on the history,
culture, food and more.
The only "bad" experience we had on this vacation really wasn't all
that bad. The one place we decided not to go on the tour was in
Sicily. We thought it looked pretty easy to just get off the ship
there, walk up the hill, tour the town of Catania a bit and find a
pizza. My husband had a serious hankering for a REAL Italian pizza and
he was determined that day he was going to find one. Eating pizza on
the cruise ship was one thing. He wanted to see the pizza oven, the
red-checked tablecloths, hear the Italian cooks and waiters, and drink
some good, local, red wine. It was not to be.
We got off the ship late morning. We started our march up a not too
steep hill (Sicily is very hilly; even mountainous). We walked for
almost 4 hours and never found a pizza. We found one restaurant that
was grilling goat out on the street. We found just about every car
fix-it shop and plumbing supply store in town. We found one beautiful
restaurant that surely had pizza but it didn't open until dinner. We
were shut out of pizza, had a few too many blisters on our feet and
were ready to surrender to any kind of food by the time we got back to
the ship around 3PM. We could almost categorize it as an ordeal, but
how can anything be bad when you are out walking in a friendly foreign
land on a sunny day.
I have not lost sight of the fact that I am one lucky woman.
Important note to those of you that like to email Zola directly: The
internet/computer geeks have not been able to recover my Zola email
from my two computer crashes. So, I did the next best thing and got
myself a new email address for you to write me at. Send me your
messages at zolacooks@gmail.com
If you have sent me a message to the old address
(dinnerwithzola@hotmail.com) in the last 5 weeks, I did not get it;
which explains why I was rude and did not respond. Sorry. You can cut
and paste those messages over to the new address and I will respond or
you can just write a new one. I'd love to hear from you.
Today's recipe is just in time for warm weather. I hope you enjoy it
soon.
Pork Loin Roast with Chunky Mango-Pineapple Chutney
Serves 4 - 6
Preheat oven to 375 degrees or light your grill
Eating fruit with meat just feels like summer. You can bake or
grill this pork loin. You can serve the chutney warm, room temp or
cold. You can even change the fruits. Other options besides mango and
pineapple are: Rhubarb (just double the sugar), strawberries, papaya
and even bananas.
1/2 lb pork loin roast or two 1 lb pork tenderloins Olive oil spray
Italian spice blend
Black pepper
For the chutney:
1 Tbl of olive oil
1 medium chopped
sweet onion
1 tsp of minced garlic
1 lb. of cubed mango
(or see fruits above). Fresh or frozen will work
1 lb. of cubed
pineapple (or see fruits above). Fresh or frozen will work
2
Tbl of light brown sugar
1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar
1 tsp of ground coriander
2 tsp of ground ginger
1 tsp
of ground cinnamon
1 tsp of ground mustard
3/4 cup of
raisins or dried cranberries (your color choice)
1 red bell
pepper, seeded and diced
Pinch cayenne (optional)
For the pork:
In a small roasting pan, spray the bottom with olive oil spray. Set
roast, fat side up in the pan and spray the top. Sprinkle with Italian
mix to your taste and grate fresh black pepper on top. Set in oven
pre-heated at 375 degrees. Roast for 40 minutes, with a meat
thermometer poked into the middle, and then check the temperature. You
want to remove the pork when the thermometer reaches 160 degrees. Then
let rest 10 minutes outside of the oven before cutting. This will
allow for juicy pork but no pink in the middle. If you are doing pork
tenderloins they will take less time to cook. Check the temperature on
them at 20 to 25 minutes. If you are able to control the temperature
on your grill they should take about the same amount of time to cook.
Slice the pork on the plate and spoon the chutney over the top or to
the side.
For the chutney:
While the pork is in the oven you can make the chutney. This is very
easy.
Put the olive oil, onion and garlic in a medium saucepan. Saute on
medium high for about 5 minutes to loosen up the onion. Then add the
rest of the ingredients and continue to cook on medium low for up to
15 minutes. Stir often. Unless the fruit was frozen when it went into
the pan, I often don't cook this for the full 15 minutes. It's really
up to you. You get to decide how chunky you want your chutney to be.
The longer you cook it the mushier it will get. If you like your
chutney to be more like a sauce you can puree the final product in
your blender. I like mine chunky. When it's warm outside and you serve
the hot meat with the cold chutney it's nice to have larger pieces of
cold, juicy fruit. If you are making this in cooler months, the warm
chutney with the ginger and cinnamon infused in it gives your cheeks a
nice glow and a wonderful smell in your kitchen.
Other options include serving this with chicken, fish or even pancakes
and waffles.
Enjoy!
Cheers,
Zola
Send email to Zola at zolacooks@gmail.com.