Pork Tenderloin with Fruit Salsa

This past weekend I had the pleasure of seeing my cousins, who have lived in North Carolina for FOREVER but are looking at houses 30-45 minutes away from my parents!


I was home for the weekend for my brother's birthday. We went to the always fabulous Philadelphia french bistro Parc. My mom then requested that I cook dinner for my parents and cousins, as a home cooked meal when you're staying in a hotel is always nice. Since I go out to eat every chance I get, I'm not positive how true that statement is, but her second one "just think, you can do something fancy and blog about it" really caught my attention. Way to know how to work me mom...


We went to a farmer's market near my parents, which has the best Amish meat stand. The pork tenderloin looked especially delicious, so we picked up a few of those and I decided to pair that with fruit salsa. It was absolutely delicious and, if I do say so myself, perfect for family as everything could be done ahead of time and it looked very classy!


Pork Tenderloin with Fresh Fruit Salsa

Ingredients:


Pork tenderloins (we used 3 and had leftovers)
Fresh fruit, including strawberries, watermelon, canteloupe, pineapple and kiwiCilantro
Marinade--I used this one
Salt and pepper


Directions:


1. Marinate your pork...obviously! Try to choose a marinade with some acid, specifically citrus, to it makes your meat nice and tender. I marinated our tenderloins for about an hour and a half.

2. Next, make your fruit salsa--it's very VERY simple. All you do is mince all of your fruit, chop a bit of cilantro, and mix it all together. Make sure to do this ahead of time, so the juice of the fruit has time to really collect. It's absolutely delicious, especially if you serve the pork with rice like I did.

3. Cook your pork! If it was summer, we absolutely would have grilled our tenderloins but, since it was periodically snowing throughout the day, I thought it would be harsh to do that to my dad (that's love right there). Instead, I cooked it in the oven. I set the temperature to 450F when it was heating up, and lowered to 375F to cook. It took about 30 minutes to cook--if you can't tell when your meat is cooked using the poke trick with your finger, use a meat thermometer. The meat should reach an internal temp around 140F. Or you can always cut the meat to see if it is cooked through. Since this pork will be sliced, no one will notice!

4. Make your sides! I did jasmati rice (seriously, its my fave!) and haricots verts.


5. When the pork is done, slice and serve on a platter with the fruit salsa in the middle, as seen above! It looks gorgeous and no one will know how easy it was! I got tons of compliments from my cousins and I'm sure you'll get high praise from your family and guest as well.




Final plate...