Guinness & Honey Glazed Pork Loin

bluemoon downunder's Note:

In his Las Vegas restaurant, The Nine Fine Englishmen, Kevin Dundon serves this Guinness glaze in a dish mixed with olive oil for dipping bread into instead of butter. Pork loin cooked with this glaze sounded just too delicious not to share. I found this recipe in the March 2005 issue of the BBC Good Food magazine. It is part of Irish cook Kevin Dundon's suggested St Patrick's Day dinner menu. He serves this pork loin with colcannon and cabbage. As he says “I love buttered cabbage with this pork. Simply heat a knob of butter and cook the remaining finely shredded cabbage (the other half of the Savoy cabbage used in his colcannon recipe) for 5 minutes, so it’s still just a little crunchy.” I have already posted his side dish colcannon - Colcannon Colcannon - and his prepare-ahead starter - Smoked Wild Irish Salmon With Chive Pancakes Smoked Wild Irish Salmon With Chive Pancakes. The preparation and cooking times provided below are my guesstimates. Kevin says that this dish will be "ready in 2 hours". Please mention your experience of cooking times if reviewing the recipe. I’ll also post his dessert for this St Patrick's Day menu: Sheridan’s Cream Sticky Pudding. All the dishes in this menu sound like any-time-of-year dishes to me! I certainly shan't be waiting until 17 March 2006 before making any of them!

• Total Time: 2 hrs
• Prep Time: 30 mins
• Cook Time: 1 hrs 30 mins

Ingredients:

Servings: 6

• 300 ml Guinness stout
• 100 ml clear honey
• 250 g light muscovado sugar
• 2 kg boneless pork loin, skinless, ask your butcher for the thick end
• white wine or champagne or water
• 3 sprigs flat leaf parsley

Directions:

1. THE GLAZE: Put the Guinness, honey and sugar into a pan, and reduce by almost half to form a sweet, syrupy glaze, then allow to cool.
2. Heat the oven to 200ºC/fan 180ºC/gas 6.
3. Season the pork with pepper and salt, if you want, place on a baking tray, and roast for 20 minutes. Then turn the heat down to 160ºC/fan 140ºC/gas 3. Remove the pork from the oven and brush all over with most of the glaze (reserving a few tablespoons), cook for a further 40-50 minutes, brushing and basting the pork as it cooks until it's beautifully caramelised and glazed.
4. Remove the pork from the roasting tray and leave to rest.
5. Pour the remaining glaze into the roasting tray, then add the wine, Champagne or water. Place the pan on the heat and bring everything to the boil. Simmer for a few minutes until you have a thick gravy.
6. Carve the pork into thin slices and place on top of the colconnan (see Colconnan Colcannon). Glaze with the Guinness syrup, drizzle a little on the plates and finish with a sprig of parsley.
7. My Notes: I really don’t think you could get any clearer instructions than Kevin Dundon’s. Yet the recipe is far from prescriptive. And I just love his catering for varied tastes in his “Season the pork with pepper and salt, if you want” instruction! And the option of using “wine, Champagne or water”. I'll be looking closely at any more of his recipes I come across.

Reviews

[Queen Dana]

This was delicious. I didn't have a loin but used pork chops instead and couldn't have been happier with result.

[SoupCookie]

Turned out okay in the end. Wasn't too thrilled by the smell of the guinness reduction though.

[Rita~]

I made the glaze as directed and started to brush right from the start. At the 20 minute point I poured all the glaze over the pork. Let it thicken along with the juices from the pork. I did glaze till it was done cooking. It thickened so nicely that I skipped the wine/water/or champange.