If you're lucky, where you live is berry season right now. You're probably seeing them popping up in the grocery store on sale - $2.99 for a 6 ounce tub, trucked in from nobody knows where (aka Mexico). But a better alternative is getting up to a farm to buy them right off the bushes, or even to pick your own. We went up this weekend and bought 10 pounds, adding to our 10 pounds of blueberries and 5 pounds of black raspberries from an earlier trip. You may think that this sounds like too many, but I assure you, it is not. We now have blueberry jalapeno jelly, raspberry jam, blackberry preserves, blackberry muffins, enough frozen berries to make smoothies through the year, and this gem.
Worried for about 5 minutes that maybe we went overboard with the blackberries, we went looking for recipes. Good old Martha Stewart came through in a pinch, bringing us an assortment of about 20 different recipes ranging from desserts through drinks, with one savory dinner option. This dish, pork medallions with a blackberry chutney, caught my eye, since I am a huge fan of the sweet / savory pairing, as well as the meats / sweets pairing. The recipe looked easy, and we even had a couple of shallots lying around, so it was calling to us. And the result was fantastic - tart, sweet, and with mellow caramel undertones from the molasses and sauteed shallots, we loved the blackberry chutney so much that we're trying to figure out what else we can serve it with. So I have chosen to rearrange the name of this dish to showcase the chutney, which was by far the star in tonight's dinner. It came together quickly, and had a short ingredient list, although you really do want good fresh berries, so some of the ingredients can be a bit fussy. Don't make any substitutions beyond that, and you'll do really well with this dish.
If you can find it, get a pork tenderloin. Not loin, that's too big and tough. Tenderloin will do you well, and will cut up and cook easily. We couldn't get our hands on one tonight, and used pork sirloin instead, which I think is a great runner up. Otherwise, we followed Martha's recipe verbatim, which I reprint here.
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| Just a small fraction of the local blackberries we picked ourselves this weekend |
Blackberry Chutney with Pork Medallions
By Martha Stewart
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided
- 2 large shallots, thinly sliced
- 1/4 cup sherry or decent red wine vinegar
- 1/4 cup dark-brown sugar
- 1 1/2 cups blackberries
- Salt and pepper
- 1 pork tenderloin or pork sirloin (1.5 pounds), cut into 1-inch slices and flattened slightly with your palm
In a small saucepan, melt 1 tablespoon butter over medium. Saute shallots until tender, 8 minutes. Add vinegar, brown sugar, and blackberries and cook until mixture is syrupy and some of the berries have collapsed, 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.
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| Add the berries after you've cooked the shallots for 8 minutes. |
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| After 10 minutes of gentle cooking with minimal stirring |
Meanwhile, season pork with salt and pepper. In a large skillet, melt 1 tablespoon butter over medium-high. Add half the pork and cook until golden brown and cooked through, flipping once, about 8 minutes. Repeat with remaining 1 tablespoon butter and pork. Serve pork topped with chutney.
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| Let the pork brown thoroughly before flipping. Note the white coloring on the edges, indicating that it's time to flip. Don't forget to season this side. |
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| Patience is a virtue... |
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| Patience, rewarded. |
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| Served over smashed potatoes and sauteed green beans (cooked in pan drippings, deglazed with some more red wine vinegar) |
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