Sunday Dinner: Loin of Pork with Grilled Potatoes

My mother took out chicken cutlets for dinner. Blegh. Chicken cutlets rarely make for a proper Sunday Dinner -- especially in January. Maybe if it was just her and I, I'd settle for the cutlets. But today was to be the whole family, minus Cotton (who is in college). I had to up the ante.

What to make....what to make...

Loin of pork! I just happen to have a nice piece of hog here.

Okay, I confess: we freeze meat. There. It's out there. I'm so, so sorry. It's not my choice -- I don't really care for frozen meat. But my mother complains if I buy meat when our deep freeze is packed to the brim, so alas, I dug a loin of pork out of the freezer.

Now, some things tolerate freezing better than others, and loin of pork isn't horrible. If anything, it turns out a bit more tender. I guess all those sharp, angular ice crystals break down the meat fibers a bit. I've prepared and eaten a good many LOPs (yes, sometimes I say this acronym out loud), both frozen and fresh, and I dare say, I prefer the previously frozen. Maybe I have bad taste -- or, er, no taste. You may not like my LOP, but I doubt you'd be able to tell me I pulled it out of the freezer.

I caught an episode of In Julia's Kitchen with Master Chefs. Roberto Donna was on making pizza. The way he spoke about and handled the dough had me sitting on the edge of the sofa: I had to make a dough. Rather than pizza, I settled on bread. This was going to demand the full attention of my oven, so the pork was going to have to cook on the grill. I planned on using the rotisserie. I seasoned up the pork with salt, pepper, and garlic -- really simple, but lots of flavor. I went out to the garage to find the spit and motor, but no luck! So I just threw the pork on the grill. The burners directly beneath the pork were on low and the outer burners were on medium. With the lid closed, the temp was about 400F. I cooked the pork for about 1 hour, maybe a little more. I knew the meat was hotter than 140F, and it just felt done, so I took it off. It was perfect! My father sliced it quite thin -- just the way I like it. My brother admitted it was the best loin of pork he's ever eaten. I wasn't blown away myself, but it was excellent indeed.

I served it with Paula Deen's grilled potatoes. They were fairly good, although I'm not a big potato person -- unless their really greasy. By the way, I used olive oil in place of the butter in Paula's recipe. We also had some steamed haricots verts. And my bread.

I just whipped up some chocolate sorbet for dessert. I can't wait...