Maiale con Salsa Verde (Pork with Green Sauce) Recipe, Spotlight on Parsley, Boosting Flavor with Leftovers, and Learn More About Resveratrol
One of the things I love most about traveling the globe is tasting how each cuisine puts its own spin on the universal foods we love—breads, dumplings, sausages…and green sauce! Some cuisines, such as Mexican salsa verde and Argentinian chimichurri, are known the world over, while others are waiting to be discovered. To my delight, on one of my many trips to Italy, I experienced their version, redolent with anchovy and capers—so delizioso that I’m sharing it with you here. It’s so versatile, too, delicious on all types of meat and seafood. Let it inspire you to try your hand at creating your own herb-based sauces—the basic elements are leafy herbs such as parsley or cilantro, onions or garlic, olive oil, and an acid such as lemon juice or vinegar, plus spices that include one form or another of red pepper for a nice kick.
Italian cuisine is synonymous with pasta and pizza, but pork is also a favorite in Italy. Pork tenderloin is the leanest cut of the pig, on a par with skinless chicken breasts. Because tenderloins have little fat and typically weigh only a pound, they cook quickly and can quickly dry out if they cook too long, so set your timer as soon as you pop them into the oven.
Maiale con Salsa Verde/Pork with Green Sauce
Maiale con Salsa Verde/Pork with Green SauceItalian cuisine is synonymous with pasta and pizza, but pork is also a favorite in Italy. Pork tenderloin is the leanest cut of the pig, on a par with skinless chicken breasts. Because tenderloins have little fat and typically weigh only a pound, they cook quickly and can quickly dry out if they cook too long, so set your timer as soon as you pop them into the oven.
Ingredients
For the pork:
- 2 pork tenderloins, about 1 pound each
- Extra virgin olive oil
- Coarse salt to taste
- Coarsely ground black pepper to taste
For the salsa verde:
- 1 cup flat-leaf parsley leaves, packed
- 1 anchovy fillet, coarsely chopped
- 1 to 2 cloves garlic, peeled and coarsely chopped
- 1-1/2 tablespoons drained brined capers
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
- 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
- Coarse salt to taste
- Coarsely ground black pepper to taste
Directions
Step 1
Preheat your oven to 400°F. Trim off any fat and silverskin from the pork tenderloins and rub all sides with extra virgin olive oil. Season generously with salt and pepper. Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a large cast iron or other oven-proof skillet over medium-high heat. Sear the tenderloins until nicely browned, about 2 minutes per side, 8 minutes in all. Place the skillet with the meat in the oven. Roast the tenderloins until the internal temperature registers 145°F, about 10 to 12 minutes or as needed. (The meat will still be slightly pink inside. Roast longer if you prefer your pork more done, but don’t overdo.) Let cool slightly before slicing.
Step 2
To make the salsa verde, combine all the ingredients in a blender or food processor and run the machine until the ingredients are well combined.
Step 3
Carve the pork tenderloin into 1/2-inch slices and arrange them on a platter. Drizzle some of the sauce over the meat and pass the rest.
Yields 6 servings.
Healthy Ingredient Spotlight
Parsley
Parsley is one of the unsung heroes of the herb garden. Of course, I mean flat leaf or Italian parsley, not the curly leaf variety, which has very little flavor. It’s a disservice to parsley to treat it as a garnish to brighten a plate since it can really brighten the food itself. It makes the perfect base for many sauces and dressings and is a great finishing touch to chicken and pasta dishes when it’s incorporated during the last minute of cooking. A key ingredient in the Middle Eastern classic tabbouleh, parsley can be a tasty addition to most salads, not only because of its flavor but also because of its nutrients. Parsley is a rich source of vitamin K and a good source of vitamins A and C. It has fewer than 4 carbs per cupful, and half of them are fiber (that means only 2 net carbs!). When parsley is fresh, you’ll be able to easily inhale its aroma, which is milder than the other great flat-leaf herb, cilantro.
Healthy Kitchen Nugget
Flavor-Boosting with Anchovies
Wondering what to do with leftover anchovies? Think of an anchovy fillet as a flavor booster—it won’t add a fishy taste. Caesar salad dressing isn’t the only dressing that benefits from anchovies—add a fillet to the mix the next time you whip up your favorite recipe. But don’t stop there. Add an anchovy to the pan when you sauté garlic or onions, especially when building flavors for a rich tomato sauce. For ease of use, buy jarred rather than canned anchovies. But if you find that you really only use them occasionally, get a tube of anchovy paste instead. Like tomato paste in a tube, it’s handy when you only need a small amount. A half teaspoon of paste equals one whole anchovy.
For Your Best Health
Resveratrol
A blog post from Joe Schwarcz, PhD, director of McGill University’s Office for Science and Society, whose mission is “separating sense from nonsense,” may have you reevaluating your wine intake. Dr. Schwarcz puts into perspective all the hoopla surrounding resveratrol, the compound in grapes and red wine that has been looked at for potential anti-cancer and heart-health properties. Cell cultures and research on rodents, worms, and the like has shown benefits, but even if resveratrol had all the same effects on people, we would need to drink “about a hundred bottles of wine to approach the amount of resveratrol fed to the mice,” writes Dr. Schwarcz.
Is the answer then to take the resveratrol supplements that have flooded the market? “More than 20,000 papers later, in spite of the plethora of laboratory and animal studies, human clinical trials, and speculation about theoretical mechanisms of action, it is still not possible to say yay or nay about taking resveratrol supplements. On the positive side, there have been no safety issues with doses as high as 5 grams. That’s comforting because if there is to be any beneficial effect from resveratrol, it will have to come from supplements. At some point, I wish we could end such articles with something other than ‘more research is needed,’ but unfortunately, this is not that time. As far as that glass of wine with supper goes, there is a good reason for drinking it. The taste. And the pleasant after-effects,” Dr. Schwarcz concludes. You can read the entire post here.
Fitness Flash
The Tremendous Benefits of Exercise
Exercise Is Medicine® is an initiative launched back in 2007 by the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) and the American Medical Association to make physical activity and exercise a standard part of disease prevention and treatment in the US, and to encourage primary care physicians to include exercise when designing treatment plans for patients. But, all these years later, too many annual doctor visits don’t even touch on the subject.
That’s unfortunate considering the tremendous health benefits seen with even low levels of exercise—as ACSM points out, the amount of exercise needed to benefit health is much lower than the amount needed for fitness (though that should be a goal, too!). Regular exercise at moderate to high intensity reduces the risk of heart disease by 40%, stroke by 27%, and the incidence of diabetes and of high blood pressure by almost 50%. It can lower the risk for certain cancers and of developing Alzheimer’s disease as well as decrease depression as effectively as Prozac or therapy. All this means that you shouldn’t leave your next doctor visit without getting an assessment of your current physical activity level and an appropriate prescription for an exercise program or a referral to a qualified fitness professional who can design one for you.
If you want a preview of how ready you are to exercise on your own, check out the Physical Activity Readiness Questionnaire, with its general and follow-up health questions. Use your results to initiate a conversation on exercise with your doctor.
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