I have a subscription to the New York Times mainly because of Melissa Clark, a cookbook author and food writer who is absolutely the most charming, delightful, quirky, quirkily delightful, delightfully quirky . . . well, you get the picture. I periodically go onto her website to check out any new stuff. (It occurred to me while I was writing this post that I could subscribe to her updates, which I just did. However, the stuff she writes specifically for the Times goes over to their website, so not all of her stuff is available directly through her.) I asked for her recent cookbook The New Essentials of French Cooking for Christmas from my son, and he is now tasked with picking out a recipe from the book for me to make before he heads back to college. (I say “recent” because Clark is such a prolific producer of cookbooks and so if I said “new” or “newest” I would probably be incorrect by now.) Anyway, a recent dive into her video archive yielded this incredible-looking item, “Thai-Inspired Pork Tenderloin Salad.” (I’m not sure if you can access this video or not if you aren’t a subscriber, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to include the link.) It looked so fantastic! I couldn’t wait to try it. So I made sure to get a pork tenderloin when I went shopping Saturday morning, along with Napa cabbage, scallions, cilantro, and jalapenos. We had the freshly-made item last night for dinner and I ate some of the (rather meager) leftovers today for lunch. The photo is of said leftovers. (I have periodic good intentions of upping my photography game, but when it comes time to actually take a picture I lose my inspiration pretty quickly. At least I took the bowl out into the living room where there’s natural light instead of just leaving it under the lights on the kitchen counter.) Oh man! Such a great dish, and checking so many boxes in the list of what I want in the food I eat:

Full of strong flavors that satisfy on many levels
Made with fresh, readily-available ingredients
Able to be served at room temp or cold, so good for the main meal and for leftovers

A couple of caveats here about this recipe that would apply to new recipes in general:

Take a minute or two to read a few comments if the recipe has them. About halfway through the quite lengthy process of prepping the vegetables I thought, ‘Why am I doing all this work when I could just throw everything into the food processor?’ The recipe says to dice/mince/chop everything and then puree half of mixture to use as a marinade for the pork, saving the other half for the dressing. But, as many commenters pointed out, that’s just silly. You basically want the same texture for a dressing as you do for a marinade; you don’t want big chunks of stuff in your dressing. By the time I had my revelatory moment I’d spent around 45 minutes in prep work; I won’t make that mistake again.
Don’t feel bound to include things you don’t like or think are just too much. Clark has you put in an enormous amount of fresh herbs; I just don’t think that’s a good idea, as it seems to be that the herbs would overwhelm everything else. Several commenters agreed with me, and I hadn’t bought the basil and mint anyway because most fresh herbs are so expensive. Cilantro (and parsley) are always cheap and readily available, but in the rush to get dinner on the table in time I forgot about the cilantro in the salad itself, although I did include it in the dressing. I don’t think this dish could have contained any more flavor than with my version!
Think about how the recipe would work with other main ingredients if you don’t want to use the one(s) specified; don’t just refuse to make it. A number of commenters said that for one reason or another they didn’t make the salad with pork but with something else, usually chicken (but one said he used seitan, which I think we’ll just gently ignore). A good reminder not to ignore a recipe that looks good without first thinking about substitutions. I think this would also be very good with salmon.

So here’s my version, and I would encourage you to try it.

Spicy Thai Pork Tenderloin Salad

This is a main-course salad that is very satisfying and flavorful but also light and crunchy. Other meat, particularly boneless chicken thighs, could be used, but the pork marries especially well with the marinade.

Course Main Course, Salad

Cuisine Asian

Servings 8 at least

Author Debi Simons

Ingredients

1 ½ pounds boneless pork tenderloin, usually 2 tenderloins put together--separate before cooking

For the marinade and dressing:

⅔ cup shallots, 4-6, dep. on size
⅔ cup cilantro leaves and tender stems
4 tablespoons light brown sugar
6 garlic cloves
5 tablespoons soy sauce
5 tablespoons peanut or grapeseed oil
4 limes, zested and juiced, or 1/2 cup juice and 1/2 tsp. lime oil*
3-inch ipiece ginger root, cut into chunks
2 tablespoons Asian fish sauce
1 to 2 chiles jalapenos, serrano, or Thai bird, seeds and ribs removed if desired**

For the salad:

8 cups Napa or regular cabbage, thinly sliced
5-6 scallions, ends trimmed, thinly-sliced up to green part where it becomes tough and/or withered
2 small Persian or Kirby cucumbers, or 1/2-1 large hothouse cucumber
1 red bell pepper, thinly sliced
1-2 jalapenos, ribs and seeds removed and finely diced
1-2 cups fresh herbs, either with leaves pulled from stems or coarsely chopped***
1 - 1 1/2 cups roasted peanuts or cashews, chopped

Instructions

Step 1

Put all marinade/dressing ingredients in food processor or blender and process until finely-chopped, forming a homogeneous mixture.

Step 2

Pat pork dry with paper towel. Place tenderloin in a large bowl and spread about a quarter of the above mixture all over pork. Marinate at room temperature for 2 hours, or cover and refrigerate up to 24 hours; turn the tenderloin occasionally.

Step 3

Light the grill or heat the broiler and arrange a rack at least 4 inches from the heat. Grill or broil pork, turning occasionally, until well browned and meat reaches an internal temperature of 135 degrees, 4 to 10 minutes per side depending upon the heat of your broiler or grill. Keep an eye on it so it doesn’t overcook. Pork will still be pink, but that's okay. Let meat rest while you prepare the salad. (Or, cook the pork 1 or 2 hours ahead and serve it at room temperature.)

Step 4

In a large bowl, combine the salad ingredients except for the chopped nuts and perhaps the jalapenos, depending on your audience. Slice pork thinly and arrange on a platter, Pour/scrape any juices/marinade over pork. Put the salad, pork, dressing, nuts and jalapenos on the table and let guests make their own combinations. Leftovers can then be refrigerated separately.

Recipe Notes

*This amount of lime juice and zest makes for a very lime-y flavor. You can reduce the amount by perhaps 1/4 if you don't want a strong lime flavor, but I wouldn't go any lower than that. If you don't want to mess with fresh limes, bottled lime juice and lime oil are perfectly acceptable. Citrus oils are available online.

**Seeds and ribs carry much of the heat in peppers; taste yours and gauge accordingly depending on your diners.

***Original recipe called for 1 1/2 cups each mint and cilantro leaves and 1 cup basil. This seems like way too much. In the rush to get this on the table I accidentally left out the cilantro I was going to include, which was just the rest of the bunch left over from the marinade/dressing, and the salad was fine. It would have been fine with the additional cilantro, too!

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