Pork fillet in beer

This superb homage to the pig is a luxurious meal, easy to cook and quick too, assuming that you have some quality chicken stock in the freezer. If not, I’ve shown you how to make your own.

Pork fillet in beer
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To make pork fillet in beer for two, you will need:

  • 400g pork fillet
  • 300ml chicken stock
  • 250ml Windhoek lager
  • Butter
  • Extra virgin olive oil

For the stock:

  • 3 chicken backs
  • 4 cloves garlic
  • 120ml dry white wine
  • 1 leek
  • 1 onion
  • 4 button mushrooms
  • Fresh basil and origanum
  • Absolutely no bay leaves at all

Let’s assume that you don’t have a rich chicken stock in the freezer. Chop the chicken backs into chunks – this allows the bone marrow to seep into the stock. Peel and thinly slice an onion, and wash and slice a leek. With cotton, tie a couple of sprigs each of origanum and basil. Quarter the mushrooms.

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Pour a tablespoon or two of olive oil into a heavy-based saucepan and bring this up to medium heat before adding the chicken chunks, vegetables and herbs for three minutes (no more). Pour in 750ml water and 120ml white wine and let the pan’s contents simmer for 50 minutes. Strain through a conical sieve and chuck out the solids. Decant 300ml for this meal and freeze the remainder for another day.

Sauce time. Pour 250ml of lager plus the 300ml of chicken stock into a saucepan. Peel and crush the garlic and add it to the pan. Bring the pan up to a rolling boil so as to cut the volume by half. Save the liquid and lose the garlic. Now for a hammer attack on the meat. Cut the pork fillet into 70mm- thick slices, cover each slice with clingfilm and lightly flatten it on a work surface to a thickness of 15mm.

Season the flattened pork with salt and pepper. Pour a tablespoon each of olive oil and butter into a frying pan and cook the meat for three minutes each side, turning once. Cover and reserve the meat on a warm dish for later in the procedure. We now have a frying pan full of pan juices. Turn the heat up high and add the liquid created from the beer and stock. Stir vigorously, and while doing so, add two additional tablespoons of butter. The sauce is now ready.

What about vegetables? Mashed potato goes well with a buttery, beery sauce, so serve the fillets on a layer of mashed potato and drench the plate with the sauce. The effect is impressive, needing only a single leaf of fresh basil to garnish the repast.

Finally, the drink. An ultra-cold pilsener or lager gives this meal the full-throated applause it so clearly deserves, while slaves of the grape will find happiness in a crisp Sauvignon Blanc.