Herbed Pork Tenderloin - The Sonoma Diet - Recipe #1

A while ago, Toasty went through a phase of trying to find low calorie recipes that tasted really good, both to reduce his own saturated fat intake and to help his partner, the lovely Mr. T., to lose some weight.

Anyway, this is one low calorie dish that we have prepared before, and quite liked, from "The Sonoma Diet". Most of the recipes in that book look great (well there aren't any pictures but they SOUND great), and Toasty and Mr. T. have enjoyed several that we have tried, sometimes even the same ones! However, in Toasty's opinion, the recipes suffer from having far too many ingredients, making them very expensive and tending to muddy the taste. Here we had the herbed tenderloin along with braised red cabbage and baked potato and while Toasty enjoyed the pork, he is not as fond of it as he used to be as he felt there were too many flavours (to paraphrase the Austrian Emperor in "Amadeus"). On the other hand Toasty did fiddle with the recipe a little, making a more substantial pan gravy by adding red wine to the roasting pan at the end, and reducing down. Toasty also used dried rosemary and marjoram. The enigmatic Mr. T. loved this one.


Herbed Pork Tenderloin





2 12 oz pork tenderloins

salt and pepper

2 tbsp balsamic vinegar

2 tbsp dry sherry

1 tbsp cracked black pepper

3 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

1 tbsp soy sauce

2 3-inch sprigs fresh rosemary

2 3-inch sprigs fresh marjoram

2 3-inch sprigs fresh thyme

2 garlic cloves, minced


Season meat with salt and pepper and place in sealable plastic bag. Then, put together the marinade, consisting of the cracked pepper, soy sauce, vinegar, sherry, herbs, garlic and 1 tbsp of the olive oil. Pour into the bag with the pork and marinate in the fridge for 2-4 hrs with occasional turning.

Drain the meat and reserve the marinade. Heat the remaining 2 tbsp of oil in a frying pan and brown the meat.

Put the tenderloins in a shallow roasting dish and pour over the marinade. Roast, uncovered at 425 F for 15 minutes. Spoon the pan juices over the meat and contiue roasting until internal temperature reaches 155 F. Cover with foil and let stand for 15 minutes before carving.

Makes 8 servings.