The decadent taste of spring at the cottage
Spring’s here! That sounds like a wonderful reason for a celebration. This year, I’m more than ready to celebrate spring since it’ll mean an end to all that snow shovelling. After living for five years in Sudbury, which gets cold but doesn’t usually get a lot of snow, I’d forgotten just how much shovelling I’d be doing back in Muskoka. I’ve had enough already. It’s time for spring.
Today’s menu is a great meal for sharing a celebration with special friends. It serves up a memory of winter with sage-flavoured potatoes, a glance over the horizon at spring on the way with a delightful pork and maple syrup dish and snappy stir-fried fiddleheads, and adds a touch of romantic intrigue with a lovely raspberry mousse. Add your favourite tossed salad and it’s a terrific menu for a spring dinner party.
Menu
Tossed Salad
Maple Glazed Pork Tenderloin with Maple Cranberry Sauce
Sage Roasted Baby Potatoes
Lemony Stir-Fried Fiddleheads
Crusty Rolls
Raspberry Mousse
Maple Glazed Pork Tenderloin with Maple Cranberry Sauce
I was planning a banquet at work and put this pork tenderloin dish on the menu. I was sure I had made a recipe like this for The Muskokan column at some point in the past. Well, I hadn’t. By the time I discovered that, the menu had been approved; that’s what we were going to serve and we had no recipe. So we made one up, did a quick test run and served it at the banquet a couple of days later. It got rave reviews and we now have a new menu item for luncheons and banquets.
2 pork tenderloins, whole
ground sage
salt and pepper
a bit of oil
1/2 cup chicken broth
1 cup maple syrup
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
1/2 tsp salt
2/3 cup cranberries, fresh or frozen
Rub the sage all over the tenderloins and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Heat the oil in a large skillet and add the tenderloins. Cook, turning occasionally until well browned, about 8 to 10 minutes. Remove the tenderloins to a baking pan and bake at 350° F for about 15 to 20 minutes, depending on the thickness of the meat, until they are slightly underdone (on a meat thermometer, they should be about 150° F internal temperature). Remove from oven and let rest for 10 minutes.
While the tenderloins are baking, add the broth to the skillet in which they were browned. Bring to a boil and deglaze the pan — scrape up the bits of browned meat and the sage. Add the maple syrup, mustard and salt and cook until it is the consistency of thin gravy. Remove from heat.
With a sharp knife, slice the tenderloins diagonally into 1-inch-thick pieces. Put the slices back into the baking pan. Pour about 1/3 of the maple sauce over the meat and stir to ensure all the pieces are well coated. Return to the oven and bake for about 10 to 15 minutes more, until pork is done (internal temperature of 165° F). Stir occasionally.
Add the cranberries to the remaining maple sauce. Bring back to a boil and cook until the cranberries are tender but not popped. They should still be whole, but soft.
To serve: Place 4 slices of tenderloin on a plate; ladle a small amount of sauce over top.
Makes 4 to 6 servings.
Sage Roasted Baby Potatoes
Sage is a wonderful herb, most often associated with Christmas and the stuffing for the Big Bird. I also like its earthy flavour in my vegetables and added to soups or stews.
12 small potatoes, scrubbed and cut in half
2 tbsp vegetable oil
salt
freshly ground black pepper
2 tbsp ground sage
Place all ingredients in a small roast pan. Stir well to coat the potatoes with oil and seasonings. Place, uncovered, in a 350° F oven for about 20 to 25 minutes until tender and lightly browned. Stir occasionally during cooking.
Makes about 4 servings.
Lemony Stir-fried Fiddleheads
This is a great way to serve a fresh harbinger of spring. Frozen fiddleheads will work but won’t hold their shape. You’ll have strings instead of curls. They still taste good, though.
1 lb fresh fiddleheads
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tbsp butter
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 green onions, finely minced
2 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
shake of salt
pepper to taste
Wash the fiddleheads in several changes of cold water. Pick through them, discard brown husks and cut off discoloured ends.
Heat the oil in a wok or large skillet. Stir-fry the fiddleheads for 3 to 4 minutes until they are bright green but still crunchy. Add garlic, butter, green onions and lemon juice and toss for another minute.
Remove from heat, season with salt and pepper and serve immediately.
Makes 4 servings.
Raspberry Mousse
Decadent. Sinful. Delightful. If you can find chocolate cups, this is the ideal filling for them; decorate with a few fresh raspberries on the plate around the chocolate cup and one berry on top of the mousse. Or serve in stemmed glasses with some light, crispy cookies on the side.
3 x 10 oz packages unsweetened frozen raspberries, thawed
2 envelopes unflavoured gelatin
1/3 cup cold water
1 cup granulated sugar
2 tbsp lemon juice
3 tbsp frozen raspberry drink concentrate, thawed or raspberry liqueur
3 cups whipping cream
Purée berries in a blender. With a wooden spoon, rub berries through a fine wire sieve to remove most of the seeds. The pulp left behind in the strainer should be quite dry. You should have about 2 cups of puréed berries. (To save time on the day of your dinner, do this step the day before. Put the purée in a bowl, cover and refrigerate until needed.)
In a small bowl, sprinkle the gelatin over the cold water. Let it soak for 5 minutes.
In a large saucepan, warm up the raspberry purée and add gelatin, sugar and lemon juice. Cook and stir over low heat just until the sugar and gelatin are dissolved, about 5 minutes. Stir in the raspberry drink concentrate. Cool and then chill until it begins to set.
Beat cream to stiff peaks. When the raspberry mixture is beginning to thicken and set, fold in the cream, gently but thoroughly.
Pour into chocolate cups or stemmed glasses. Or let it set in the refrigerator until almost firm and pipe through a pastry bag fitted with a star tip.
Makes lots, probably 8 to 10 servings.
Mary-Lyn Tebby is a creative cook who loves to play with food.
