Juicy, pink, and tender roasted pork fillet, infused with the scent and flavour of honey and thyme. A quick, easy, and delicious dish, requiring only a few ingredients, and perfect for Sunday lunch or a dinner party.
This is one of our favourite family recipes. I first prepared it many years ago after purchasing thyme honey at a market, and finding this recipe online. Meanwhile I make it with regulare honey and simply add more fresh thyme, and it works just as well.
See also TIPS FOR COOKING PORK FILLET
The thyme, honey, pork and stock work so well together in this dish, as the honey's sweetness is perfectly offset by the thyme, seasoning, stock, and pork, leaving just the right balance of flavours in the dish.
The dish is surprisingly tasty, considering the short cooking time it receives. It is quick and simple to prepare, requiring just a handful of ingredients and minimal effort.
The fillet is seasoned and quickly seared in the pan, then topped with the honey and thyme butter and stock, and finished in the oven.
A festive and flavourful dish, served in medallion slices with the pan sauce.
Goes well with MINI HERBED POMMES ANNA, GRATIN DAUPHINOIS, or HASSELBACK POTATOES.
How to prepare:
HONEY & THYME ROASTED PORK FILLET
See also TIPS FOR COOKING PORK FILLET
Recipe adapted from: Honey-Thyme Roasted Pork Loin, by Kerry Saretsky, French Revolution Blog
INGREDIENTS:
Serves 2-3
1 pork fillet/tenderloin, approximately 500 g, ideally of uniform thickness
60 ml honey
1 tablespoon unsalted soft butter (the butter should be just soft enough so it can be stirred)
1 bunch of fresh thyme
60 ml (¼ cup) chicken stock (or prepare from stock cube)
2 tablespoons olive oil
freshly ground black pepper
fine sea salt
METHOD:
Gather all the ingredients.
Remove any sinew and fat from the pork then let it come to room temperature for about 15 minutes before using.
Preheat the oven to 190°C/170°Fan/375°F. Line a small rimmed baking dish with aluminium foil and lightly oil it.
Dry the pork with a paper towel. Generously season it on all sides with salt and freshly ground black pepper.
Heat a frying pan over medium-high heat. Once hot, add 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Once the oil starts to shimmer, add the pork and sear it for about 3 minutes on each side until it's nicely browned.
While the pork is searing, pull the thyme leaves off the stems, roughly cut them and add them to a bowl. Add 1 tablespoon soft butter and 60 ml (1/4 cup) honey and blend well. Season with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper and stir well.
Once the pork is seared, move it to the prepared baking dish. Deglaze the frying pan with 60 ml (1/4 cup) of chicken stock, scraping up the browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Set aside.
Cover the seared pork with the thyme-honey-butter mixture. If the mixture runs off, spoon it back on.
Pour the stock next to the pork into the baking dish.
Roast the pork: Place the pork in the preheated oven and roast until the internal temperature reaches 63°C/145°F - about 10-12 minutes. Timing will depend on the size and thickness of your fillet. To measure the temperature, insert a food thermometer halfway into the thickest part of the fillet.
Once cooked, take the pork out of the oven, cover it with aluminium foil (cut a small hole on top for ventilation) and allow it to rest for about 10 minutes. During this time, the pork will continue to cook, and its temperature will probably increase by another 5°C.
Slice the fillet into medallions and serve it together with the pan sauce, garnished with a few sprigs of fresh thyme.
This dish pairs well with a side of MINI HERBED POMMES ANNA, GRATIN DAUPHINOIS, and HASSELBACK POTATOES.
TIPS FOR COOKING PORK FILLET:
Buy a fillet with even thickness, as thinner ends tend to cook faster and may dry out compared to the thicker centre. If your fillet has a thinner end, tuck it underneath and secure it with kitchen twine. This will make it a similar width to the rest of the fillet, ensuring it cooks in the same time.
Searing: Make sure to sear the meat well. This not only adds colour and flavour, but the browned stuck-on bits on the bottom of the pan also enrich the pan sauce when deglazed.
Deglazing: Deglazing is a method to incorporate all the flavourful browned bits stuck in the pan after frying. To deglaze, add a small amount of stock or another liquid to the pan after frying and removing the meat, then cook the stock for a couple of minutes while scraping the bottom of the pan to incorporate all the flavourful residues.
Food-safety: To be safe, meat must to be cooked to a minimum internal temperature, see here for more information. At the same time, it should remain tender and juicy. This is particularly important for pork and chicken, that are unsafe if undercooked, and can quickly become tough if overcooked.
Unfortunately internal temperatures can be a bit of guessing game. For this reason, I always use a food thermometer. They are inexpensive, but a really good investment. You can use an instant read thermometer, that you insert into the meat once cooked. My favourite is a digital oven thermometer with a probe attached to a long heat-resistant cable connected to the reader. The probe is inserted half-way into the thickest part of the meat and left inside during roasting, with the oven door closed, and the reader on the countertop. Most of them come with an alarm and pre-set temperature settings for different meats, as well as temperature scales for various levels of doneness (done, medium, rare) in accordance with food safety regulations. We use ours for most meats, poultry, fish, and it's also an excellent tool for anything baked in a salt crust. Always insert the thermometer half-way into the thickest part of the meat. When setting the temperature, bear in mind, that the meat will continue to cook and increase a couple of degrees during resting, so remove the meat from the oven just before it reaches the desired temperature.
Resting: During cooking, the juices of the meat bubble up to the surface. Resting allows the juices to sink back into the meat, keeping it moist and preventing them from running out during cutting. A rule of thumb for resting time is 10% of the total cooking time. While resting, the meat's temperature will rise by another few degrees. Therefore consider removing the meat a few degrees below the target of the final temperature.
TEXT-ONLY RECIPE
HONEY & THYME ROASTED PORK FILLET
Juicy, pink, and tender roasted pork fillet, infused with the scent and flavour of honey and thyme. A quick, easy, and delicious dish, requiring only a few ingredients, and perfect for Sunday lunch or a dinner party.
See also TIPS FOR COOKING PORK FILLET
Recipe adapted from: Honey-Thyme Roasted Pork Loin, by Kerry Saretsky, French Revolution Blog
INGREDIENTS:
Serves 2
1 pork fillet/tenderloin, approximately 500 g, ideally with uniform thickness
60 ml honey
1 tablespoon unsalted soft butter (the butter should be just soft enough so it can be stirred)
1 bunch of fresh thyme
60 ml (¼ cup) chicken stock (or prepare from stock cube)
2 tablespoons olive oil
freshly ground black pepper
fine sea salt
Frying pan, oven-proof dish
DIRECTIONS:
Gather all the ingredients.
Prepare the pork: Remove any sinew and fat from the pork and let it come to room temperature for about 15 minutes before frying.
Preheat the oven to 190°C/170°Fan/375°F. Line a small rimmed baking dish with aluminium foil and lightly oil it.
Season the pork: Dry the pork with a paper towel, then generously season it an all sides with salt and freshly ground black pepper.
Sear the pork: Heat a frying pan over medium-high heat. Once hot, add 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Once the oil starts to shimmer, add the pork and sear it for about 3 minutes on each side until nicely browned.
Prepare the honey-thyme-butter: While the pork is searing, pull the thyme leaves off the stems, roughly cut them and add them to a bowl. Add 1 tablespoon soft butter and 60 ml (1/4 cup) honey and blend well. Season with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper and stir well.
Deglaze the pan: Once the pork is seared, move it to the prepared baking dish. Deglaze the pan with 60 ml (1/4 cup) of chicken stock, scraping up the browned stuck-on bits from the bottom of the pan. Set aside.
Cover the seared pork with the thyme-honey-butter mixture.
Add the stock: Pour the stock next to the pork into the baking dish.
Roast the pork: Place the pork in the preheated oven and roast until the internal temperature reaches 63°C/145°F - about 10-12 minutes. Timing will depend on the size and thickness of your fillet. To measure the temperature, insert a food thermometer into the thickest part of the fillet.
Rest the pork: Once cooked, take the pork out of the oven, cover with aluminium foil (cut a small hole on top for ventilation) and allow it to rest for about 10 minutes. During this time, the pork will continue to cook, and its temperature will probably increase by another 5°C.
Serve: Slice the meat into medallions and serve it together with the pan sauce, garnished with a few sprigs of fresh thyme.
Pairs well with a side of MINI HERBED POMMES ANNA, GRATIN DAUPHINOIS, or HASSELBACK POTATOES.
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