Oven Roasted Pork Tenderloin in Soy and Balsamic Sauce

I don't cook much oven baked or roasted food, which means it's been a long time since I last used the oven, which means I am not good at this, so please bear with me while I try.  Everytime I do, I feel like I am always a newbie.  The good news is... we ate what I cooked.

Roasted Pork Tenderloin in Soy and Balsamic Sauce

Ingredients:

1 pork tenderloin, silver skin removed, paper towel dried

6 tbsp soy sauce

2 tbsp brown sugar

2 tbsp balsamic vinegar

2-4 tbsp minced garlic 

salt about 1/2 tsp.

pepper about 1 tsp.

Cooking Instructions:

1.  Salt the tenderloin lightly, add pepper, set aside

2.  In a bowl, mix soy sauce, brown sugar, balsamic vinegar and minced garlic.

3.  Marinate tenderloin in 1/2 of the mixture for an hour in room temperature or a few hours in the refrigerator.  Set aside 1/2 of the mixture for later.

4.  Preheat oven to 400 degrees fahrenheit

5.  In a shallow pan or tray covered with aluminum foil, place the tenderloin and cook for 20 minutes

6.  Once 20 minutes baking is done, change the setting of the oven to "roast".
7.  Pour to the meat the other half of the mixture to become sauce and to not dry the meat and roast for 5 more minutes or more until 150 degrees internal temperature is reached.

8.  Take it out of the oven and let it rest for 10 minutes before slicing.

9.  Serve with steamed vegies.

Oven Roasted Pork Tenderloin and Potatoes

I am sometimes at lost of what to cook for my family.  With what I have in my freezer, I have to be creative and cook delicious food my family would like.  What I do when I shop is buy meat on sale and put it in the freezer and buy vegetables in season which naturally are cheaper and easier to find than for example wanting to cook asparagus as a side dish when it is not in season, sometimes it is not available and when you find it, you have to pay dearly for it.

Sometimes, I am inspired to cook therefore ideas keep coming to my head, sometimes I google for recipes where I get ideas and inspiration, and sometimes, I just don't know what to do.

Today, I didn't know what to cook.  I have pork tenderloin which I bought from Costco on sale thawed in cold water in my sink ($5 off for a pack of 4 tenderloins). I had to do what was the most simple but delicious way to cook pork - fry it. 

I sliced one pork tenderloin into 1/2 inch thick, put salt and pepper and fried it in extra virgin olive oil.

Another thing I did was baked and roasted one tenderloin in my counter-top convection oven.  

Ingredients:
1 pork tenderloin (remove silver coating)
salt
pepper
marjoram
extra virgin olive oil
balsamic vinegar
4-6 small potatoes cut up

Cooking instructions:
1.  Salt and pepper one pork tenderloin
2.  Add and rub marjoram
3.  Pour and rub about 4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil to the pork on both sides
4.  Salt and pepper 4-6 small potatoes
5.  Put together in a shallow oven tray
6.  Bake for 30 minutes at 400 degrees Fahrenheit
7.  Drizzle with about 4 tbsp balsamic vinegar, more if you like
8.  Change your oven setting from bake to roast and roast pork and potatoes for another 3-5  minutes until temperature reaches 160 degrees.  Do not overcook.

When I sliced the roasted tenderloin, it seems to me it was overcooked.  I googled for more cooking instructions and here's the problem:  some people say cook to 160 degrees while some say cook to 140, let it rest 5 to 10 minutes, the temp goes up to 145 degrees, then slice and serve.

After I baked it for 30 minutes at 400 degrees, I took the internal temperature and it was 140 degrees.

Next time I would change cooking as follows: 6.  Bake for 20 minutes at 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
 Keep the rest of the cooking instructions the same. I will target to cook to 140-145 degrees and see what happens.

Note:  pictures to follow