Honey and Soy Pork Fillet

Sat 26 Jan 2008

Aside from a few people wrapped in Australian flags in the city centre, Australia Day seemed to pass Leeds by. Not even really a celebration round ours, though we did make dinner from Australia Gourmet Traveller and we did drink Australian wine.

We ate ginger and soy pork with baby bok choy from the Gourmet Fast section of the magazine. To be honest, while I did follow the 'recipe' I'm not sure how many people buying AGT (or perhaps even reading this site) will need to be told how to make a honey and soy marinade. But here goes.

Mix together some honey and soy sauce. Add grated garlic and ginger. Mix well.

Take your pork fillet (tenderloin) and halve length wise. Marinate the pork in the honey/soy mix.

Cook some rice.

Fry the pork fillet, basting with the remaining marinade, until cooked.

Steam some baby bok choy.

When cooked, slice the pork fillet, serve on the rice and bok choy and serve sprinkled with some lightly toasted sesame seeds. Perhaps drizzle with a little sesame oil.

I'm sorry I can't sound more enthusiastic. There are a few things wrong with the recipe. Firstly, I'd say the proportion of honey to soy is grossly in favour of the honey (for 4 - 1/3 cup honey to 1/4 cup soy). In addition, because both the garlic and ginger are grated you get a rather too subtle ginger-y taste through the marinade. Personally, I prefer it when they're finely chopped: I think you get a stronger flavour and you get the mini-explosions of garlic or ginger when you bite through a piece. I think the addition of chilli (which I left out only because I was following the recipe) would go a long way.

Pork fillet is too expensive and delicate a cut of meat for this treatment. I think you'd be better off marinating a cheaper cut of pork, sliced up for a stir fry. You could flash fry it, and use some of the remaining marinade to pep up some fried rice - with plenty of vegetables. After all, just the bok choy will not get you much further towards your five a day ...

We served this with a Keith Tulloch 2005 Hunter Valley semillon (£9.99 Hoults). I was told that this was slightly botrytised and would have enough sweetness to match the marinade. If you'll pardon the pun - what rot! This is a bright, lime-yellow wine, with loads of lemon and lime on the nose and just the tiniest hint of honey. There's a touch of sweetness on the front of the palate which soon gives way to some mouth watering acid and even more lemon and lime. The wine comes in at just 10.5% abv - in the shop this gave some weight to the argument for sweetness, but in reality it's a reflection of a cool summer. I thought it was a smashing wine but it wasn't a good match with the food. Perhaps salt and pepper squid, served with plenty of lemon, or some fresh, fried garfish ... but not pork in honey and soy.

This was a shame, because the Caves de Turckheim gewurztraminer we had the other week would have been a far superior match. But I am a sucker for trying something new, and sometimes that is rather more miss than hit.

tagged with: pork, semillon

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