Oven Pork Tenderloin and Vegetables with Spiced Pan Fried Potatoes

Tonight I got an urge for some good old fried potatoes to go along with the shio koji-marinated pork tenderloin I had already planned. And why not jazz them up a little? This is one of my favorite variations on them, and the warm Indian spices go very well alongside the seasoned meat and veggies.

As for the vegetables, I was going back and forth on what to cook with this. And we’re currently running low on the fresh stuff other than root vegetables. But, frozen veggies come to the rescue! For very little extra effort, you can have another delicious side dish roasted in the same pan as the meat.

This is a very simple meal, which was extremely satisfying on a chilly evening.

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Oven Pork Tenderloin and Vegetables with Spiced Pan Fried Potatoes

Juicy tenderloin roasts surrounded by frozen vegetables, for an easy meal served with a side dish of potatoes pan fried with Indian spices while the rest bakes.

Prep Time45 minutes mins

Active Time30 minutes mins

Course: Main Course, Side Dish

Cuisine: American, Indian-inspired

Keyword: Dairy free, Fall, Gluten free, Potatoes

Yield: 4 servings

Materials

Meat and Vegetables

• 500 g whole pork tenderloin (1 lb.) optionally marinated or dry brined as described in instructions, starting the night before
• seasoning rub of your choice
• 350 g chunky frozen vegetable mix of your choice (12 oz., or ¾ lb.)
• seasoning to taste for the veggies
• 3-4 tbsp olive oil

Spiced Fried Potatoes

• 750 g potatoes (1½ lb.) preferably a firm cooking variety like for boiling
• 1 large onion, or two smallish fairly coarsely diced
• 1-2 green chili (optional) small, chopped
• 2-3 cloves garlic chopped
• 2-3 tbsp neutral oil of choice
• ⅔ tsp salt or to taste
• coarsely ground pepper to taste
• 1½ tsp panch phoran spice mix Bengali five spice (packaged, or recipe link in instructions)
• ½ tsp Kashmiri chili powder (can sub paprika if you prefer)
• ½ tsp paprika
• squeeze lime or lemon juice to finish
• chopped cilantro/coriander leaf to serve (optional)

Instructions

Prep and Bake the Meat and Veggies

• Trim any silverskin off the tenderloin. Optionally set your meat to marinate in 100ml / around ⅓ cup shio koji like I did the night before, or dry brine it. Either will make for extra succulent and flavorful meat. If you've done that, remove it from the marinade or brining receptacle, and wipe off excess with paper towels. Set aside.

  Season the meat all over. Here I just used some low-salt spice rub that I had left from cooking a lightly cured pork loin a while back. You will probably want something higher in salt if your meat doesn't already have plenty from a marinade or brining.

  If you don't have any suitable rub on hand, this recipe from Salt & Lavender looks good.

  Set aside in the fridge.
• Preheat the oven to 200℃/400℉.
• While that heats, wash and cut your potatoes into bite-sized pieces. You can peel them if you like, but these really didn't need it. I didn't weigh these, just estimated from experience how many should comfortably fit into the pan I was using. 700-750g/1½ lb. should be close enough.

  Set them aside, covered with water.
  
• Chop the onion, garlic, and chili, and set aside for later.
• Set the chunky frozen vegetables you want around the edges of a baking dish. I didn't weigh these out either, just eyeballed what looked right.

  Tonight I was in the mood for plenty of green beans, but added some of this other popular vegetable mix for color and a little variety. Something like California mix should work well here.
  
• Sprinkle seasoning on the veggies to taste. Remember, they will pick up a little more from the seasoned meat.

  I purposely let these green beans thaw out a bit, because I wanted those more tender. Most should probably go in the oven frozen.
  
• Time to put everything together. Brush your seasoned meat on the other sides with olive oil, and set in the middle of baking dish with the vegetables around it.

  Brush the top generously with more oil, and drizzle what's left over the veggies. You may need to grab the bottle for a little extra to get fairly even coverage.

  (We actually had a little extra meat ready to cook today, so if you're thinking that looks like more than called for? It really is around 750g/1½ lbs. worth.)
  
• The pan is ready for the oven.

  If you have an oven-safe thermometer probe, stick it into the middle of the thickest piece.
  
• Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until the internal temperature reads somewhere between 63-71°C (145-160°F) depending on the doneness level you prefer. Let rest for 10 minutes once it comes out of the oven, loosely covered by foil.

Frying the potatoes

• These are pretty standard good old fried taters like I grew up on, but with the addition of some delicious Indian-inspired seasonings.

  We are working with firm-cooking potatoes like you'd generally use in soups or stews here, but you can use varieties good for mashing or baking if you prefer. Those will break up more easily toward the end.
• Get your whole spices ready. If you can't find packaged panch phoran, here is a good recipe. If you prefer, use a mix of cumin and black/brown mustard seeds instead.

  This TRS blend doesn't have as much mustard as I prefer for potatoes, so I used part extra mustard seeds here. For people who aren't as familiar with black mustard, it doesn't add the type of "mustardy" flavor that you would normally associate with prepared mustard when it's used like this. It's more of a warm nuttiness that's hard to describe.
  
• Get your powdered spices ready. I'm aiming for a spiced flavor with only a mildish heat here. You can adjust as you prefer.
  
• Time to start frying taters!
  
• Start by heating the oil over highish heat, and add in the whole spices. You'll want to use a fairly heavy nonstick pan, or well-seasoned cast iron.

  Have a lid ready, because the mustard will pop like popcorn when it heats up. Once the pinging against the lid slows down, pull the pan off the heat and turn the heat down to the higher side of medium.
  
• Add in the well-drained potatoes and onions, and carefully turn around with a spatula to coat with the oil and spices.

  I also added around half the salt and a good grinding of pepper at this point.

  Cover and cook for 10 minutes or so. Leave it be for now.
  
• When the potatoes feel about halfway done, add in the garlic/chili and other seasonings which might burn if they go in earlier. I added the rest of the salt too.

  Mix well, and cover the pan for another 10-15 minutes. Now you'll want to check and turn the potatoes every 5 minutes or so.
  
• When the potatoes are soft inside, they're done. Remove the lid and continue to cook with more attention to keeping the taters from sticking and burning, until they're browned to your liking. I didn't want these crisped up a lot, more some browning for flavor.

  Add a squeeze of lime or lemon juice to taste, and adjust the salt if you need to. Cover them until you're ready to eat.
  

Putting It All Together

• By this time, the meat should be about done. Reminder that we're aiming for 63-71°C (145-160°F) internal temperature.

  You will probably also want to stir the veggies around so that they're well coated by the pan juices. This is before I did that, just out of the oven.

  After taking out of the oven, let everything sit covered loosely with foil for at least 5-10 minutes.
  
• Once it's rested, cut up the meat as you like. I did it on a separate plate, because that was so much easier to manage.
  
• Serve and enjoy!

  You can add a sprinkle of chopped cilantro/coriander leaf on the potatoes before serving, as a nice touch. We didn't have any tonight, and I'm the only one in the house who enjoys it.