Pork mania- New recipe!
I was watching Drive-ins, Diners and Dives and saw a pork steak recipe that I thought looked intriguing. It has a semi-dry rub with CINNAMON. I'm a very savory person, and usually think cinnamon as a sweet flavor with sugar, or chocolate (Mexican hot chocolate), etc.
What's in the semi-dry rub? Here it goes, per the recipe from Paul's Coffee Shop:
- Chopped onions
- Chopped cilantro
- Seasoning salt*
- Pepper (McCormick's type)
- Olive Oil
- Granulated garlic
- Cinnamon
- Cumin**
- Pork tenderloin cutlets***- thin sliced (1/2 inch?), not pork chops. This is for a quick cook dinner.
*Seasoning salt- I didn't have any so recipe I found here:
- 2 tablespoons salt
- 2 teaspoons sugar- omitted
- 1/2 teaspoon paprika
- 1/4 teaspoon turmeric
- 1/4 teaspoon onion powder- substituted with Onion seasoning
- 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder- substituted with garlic salt
- 1/4 corn starch- omitted
**Cumin is an ingredient I added. Might have to try without it next time since it's a overpowering spice.
***I didn't put a specific weight of how much to prepare, because this is a pretty easy recipe to make on the fly. I cook for just me, so I bought a package of 1lb of cutlets. I ate three cutlets out of six. I plan on freezing the other three and having later as tacos maybe?
Disclaimer:
I didn't measure anything, just sprinkled everything onto the meat. Use your judgement? I went easy on the regular salt since I used garlic salt. Garlic salt is not garlic powder. Go easy on the salt if you're going to marinate for more than three hours- especially if you're going to marinate overnight. My batch was on the salty side- but I tend to go heavy on the salt. I'm working on it!
I also didn't add granulated garlic since there's garlic salt in the seasoning salt.
I considered adding fresh minced garlic, however fresh garlic has a high sugar content so it would just burn when you cook the meat.
Now for the 'cooking:'
Mix all ingredients into a metal bowl. Mix around and distribute onions around.
Cover with plastic wrap and marinate in the fridge for three to four hours. You can marinate overnight, but a few hours does it.
Heat pan (I used my Le Creuset grill pan I bought myself for Christmas last year) to the point the meat sizzles when you put it on the pan. I would say put the stove on medium high heat and wait a few minutes. The point is you don't want to put the meat on a cold pan because, well, I don't know but you won't get the golden brown we're trying to achieve. You don't want to burn the meat either so don't keep the flame too high. It's also a pain to clean the pan if the meat burns. A waste of food too. Anyways...
I would say cook for three-five minutes on each side. The best way to know one side is done is the meat's juices will start pooling on top pf the meat. You will also see the profile of the meat cooking as well- the bottom half will start to look cooked.
Any onions that made it onto the pan WILL BURN. Don't be alarmed. This is why I suggest not putting fresh garlic in this recipe. The onions will burn, but they aren't burned onto the meat so it's ok.
That's about it. Not sure what else to say...
I had a side of quinoa. I would've made a side of kale and mushrooms, but cooking for one person is tough and annoying so I kind of gave up on the vegetable side. My mom would be disappointed, but I know better. I'll eat more veggies over the next couple days to make up for it.
This recipe really is inspiring me to do more rubs since it's so easy. I would add more cinnamon than you think is appropriate. It smells AMAZING when you cook it. Cinnamon is more for scent over flavor I think. I had to grind mine so I only added one stick and it was coarsly ground and not finely ground.
Sorry for the lengthy post!
Enjoy!


