Pork Marbella

This is a very frisky recipe for me to try. A pork dish? Combining sweet and savory? Clearly I went "all-in" with this one. I came across this recipe in a GQ magazine while I was travelling. Luckily it was available online because I'm feeling too lazy to type it up in any detail :-). The sauce was adapted from a Silver Palate recipe for Chicken Marbella (which explains the quantity of olive oil ;-).

Pork Marbella
adapted from this recipe

I'll let you guys check the link. But here's what I changed:
- I used mostly sherry vinegar (under-estimated the remaining amount of red wine vinegar... oops)
- balked at a full 1/2 cup of capers, and probably used 1/4 to 3/8 c
- used dried oregano and thyme instead of fresh
- omitted the chicken broth (I didn't need any since my roasting pan is quite small)
- 1/2 c brown sugar? I'm not that brave... but I did sprinkle on a tbsp or so
- served on a baked potato instead of polenta

This was... interesting. It's an attractive dish and the sauce is flavourful and really rich, with no single ingredient too dominant (which was surprising given the recipe). I loved the olives in this, but the prunes... not quite so much. If I made it again I'd use less olive oil, less prunes, the full amount of capers, omit the brown sugar entirely, and serve it on a base that had more texture.

Update: Since I wasn't overly thrilled with this dish, I stowed the leftovers away in the freezer and promptly forgot all about it. But eventually hunger (and an otherwise empty larder) drove me back to it. I was surprised to find that it tasted a lot better than I remembered. Perhaps the flavour improves after letting it sit for a while, or maybe I was hungrier than I thought, but I wouldn't write this recipe off entirely. Give it a try...