Sirloin Pork Roast

Take it Easy



There's something odd about buying meat off the back of a truck in vacant supermarket parking lot. The setting makes me feel as though I'm engaged in something unsavory — like buying porn — nevertheless, I do it on most Fridays. West Wind Farms, which is located up on the Cumberland Plateau, makes three regular stops in Knoxville, including the grocery store parking lot, on Fridays to sell chicken, beef, pork, and turkey as well as a collection of specialty products they make such as summer sausage, corned beef, and salami.

The couple who own West Wind are nice folks and if I remember correctly they're both environmental scientists by training who decided to get into organic ranching. At any rate, on this day I'd been planning on getting a pork butt to make a pork daube. They didn't have a shoulder but they did have a pork sirloin roast.

My thinking was this approach would minimize the contraction of the muscle fibers and so avoid toughening the meat and driving the juices out.

This is a cut from the opposite end of the pig and is also largely opposite in character. Where the butt has multiple muscles running in different directions with layers of fat separating the muscles, the sirloin is only two primary muscles with relatively little internal fat. The character they have in common is that both cuts tend to be tough which means they're best cooked low and slow. But because of the lack of fat and connective tissue (both of which melt and produce a tender pork butt when braised or barbequed) the sirloin has a tendency to dry out. So I decided to roast it at 225F — very low and slow.

My thinking was this approach would minimize the contraction of the muscle fibers and so avoid toughening the meat and driving the juices out. I was right. I pulled the roast from the oven at 145F and after resting for 15 minutes slicing into it did no more than moisten the cutting board — the juices were all still inside and the roast was a perfect medium from about 1/4 of an inch inside to the center. And although not as tender as a loin roast, it certainly wasn't tough.

Roast Pork

3 lb. pork roast
3 lg. garlic clove &mdash smashed
Salt and pepper
Ground dried rosemary
1 small onion — diced
1 carrot — diced
1 stalk celery — diced
2 Tbsp. olive oil, separated
2 Tbsp. fresh thyme leaves
~3/4 cup red wine, separated

Heat oven to 225F.

Rub pork with one of the smashed garlic cloves. Sprinkle lightly on all sides with ground rosemary then season generously with salt and pepper.

Heat 1 1/2 tablespoons of oil in a large, oven-poof skillet over medium-high heat. Brown roast on all sides then transfer to a plate.

Add onions, carrot, and celery to skillet along with additional oil if needed and cook, stirring occasionally, until vegetables begin to brown. Add garlic and thyme and cook a minute longer. Deglaze skillet with 1/2 cup of wine.

Place roast on top of vegetables and place skillet in center of oven. Cook until an instant read thermometer show the internal temperature reaches 145F (about 2 hours). Remove from oven from tent roast with foil.

Transfer 1 1/2 cups of vegetables from the skillet to a sauce pan and add enough additional wine to completely cover. Bring to a soft boil and cook about 15 minutes. Puree vegetable mixture in a blender or food processor. Taste and adjust seasonings. Serve over sliced pork.

Technorati: Food | recipe | kevin d weeks | seriously good | main dish | pork | pork roast