Welsh pork medallions in a mediterranean sauce

Due to the recent change of circumstances of a very good friend of mine, I have, at present, a freezer three quarters full of pork. You should see it – it’s all beautifully wrapped, packed and clearly labelled, and I now really need to get on with eating it! I have one drawer full of large joints, one of small joints and another full of pork loin steaks and slices of pork belly. I’m still umming and ahhing about what to do with the belly pieces, but I’ve had lots of ideas for the joints and the steaks. As you will be able to tell from the title, I had an idea the other day which worked out very well indeed, so I’ve decided to share it with you. (I’m generous like that!) So, here it is.

Ingredients (serves 4)

• 4 pork medallions (I cut them out from the pork loin steaks)
• 2 onions, sliced
• couple of cloves of garlic (chopped) or 2 teaspoons of garlic puree
• 2 peppers (capsicum) – different colours if possible (sliced)
• couple of sticks of celery (sliced)
• large splash of red wine or slightly smaller splash of port!
• 1 (400g) tin of tomatoes – I used chopped tomatoes as none of us like the whole tomatoes in the finished meal
• chicken stock cube
• bouquet garni
• seasoning

Method

1. Brown the pork medallions in a large, flat bottomed pan (preferably one that they can all fit in, flat on the pan rather than having to overlap. Remember that the medallions will shrink a little during cooking).
2. When the medallions are brown, place on a plate and fry the onions off. If you are using chopped garlic cloves, add them now as well. Once the onions have become slightly transparent, add in the sliced peppers and celery and fry until soft.
3. Put the medallions back into the pan. If you are using garlic puree, add this now and mix everything well to make sure that it is evenly spread out. Pour in the red wine or port and use this liquid to help get the residue from the bottom of the pan – this will add flavour to the sauce and will make the washing up much easier!
4. Once the wine has reduced slightly, crumble in your chicken stock cube, tip in the tinned tomatoes and add the bouquet garni and seasoning. Mix it all well together, but try not to agitate the pork too much as you will want the medallions to stay intact. Heat everything up until it is simmering (not boiling).
5. At this point, I put all of the mixture with a splash of boiling water in my crockpot and left it to simmer down for the day. If you don’t have a crockpot, you could leave it in the pan to reduce the sauce (stirring fairly frequently to make sure nothing sticks and burns to the pan) or you could put it in a relatively low oven to achieve a similar result to the crockpot. Either way, keep an eye on it to make sure that it doesn’t dry out, and add hot water as needed.

I served this with sliced runner beans and lightly spiced roasted potatoes but I think that it would be equally nice on a bed of mashed potato or rice, or even with pasta although I think if you went for the latter option you might want to increase the quantity of the sauce at the initial cooking stage by using an extra half to a full tin of tomatoes, another splash of wine and a little more black pepper!

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