My “52 In 22” Cooking Challenge Pays Homage To The Great Anthony Bourdain!
I was as stunned as all food fans when news of Bourdain’s death hit in June 2018: he was a great Chef, passionate Foodie, best-selling Author, TV Host and world traveller…to pay tribute to his legacy, my “52 In 22” cooking challenge will tackle one of the most popular dishes from the restaurant where he found fame!
Bourdain’s Les Halles Cookbook was one of the first ten cookbooks I stacked up to begin this year’s “52 In 22” cooking challenge, and found this recipe – for a dish named one of his New York restaurant’s most popular:
“Mignons de Porc a L’ail!”
Everything sounds delicious in French, doesn’t it? Literally, this translates to “Garlic Pork Mignons!”
As a true garlic fanatic, I look for any excuse to cook with it in a different way, and that’s what I got here!
Here are the ingredients: there aren’t that many really, but we will be serving our “bacon-wrapped garlic pork medallions” over mashed potatoes as recommended by the Chef – and let’s begin the recipe by making some garlic confit!
It’s very simple: heat your oven to 350 degrees, put two whole garlic bulbs in some tin foil, drizzle with olive oil and add a sprig of fresh thyme:
A half hour later, remove them from he oven, let cool and then squeeze the garlic out of the husks and set aside…oh by the way, this ensures the rest of your cooking is done with this delicious fragrance in your kitchen!
With the Garlic Confit done, time to sear the Pork Tenderloin!
Chef says to sear your 10-12 ounce pork tenderloins over medium high heat in a bit of olive oil and two tablespoons of butter….you want it seared on the outside, so I did it for 5-6 minutes before turning it – when done, I set mine on top of two slices of raw bacon like so:
“Bacon-wrapped” anything is going to be delicious, and the key here is to wrap the tenderloin with the bacon overlapping…of course, I forgot to put my garlic confit on top like Chef said to, so after I wrapped, I went back and stuffed it with the confit like so:
Now, the ceremonial trip to the oven, which has been heated to 350 again – use a roasting pan to catch any juices that come out of your pork as it cooks:
Chef recommended 20 minutes or so for the pork, but I gave it a bit longer as my bacon was a bit thicker and I wanted to make sure everything was done…
Next up, Bourdain says to remove the old oil/butter and add two tablespoons more, but I kept all of that great oil and butter in the pan and added two thinly sliced shallots over medium heat, which brought the kitchen to noisy life again:
The recipe called for a quarter cup of white wine but I used a bit more, and you reduce it by half…now, Chef also recommends you take any drippings from the pork in the oven and put it in the sauce as well….after cooking down, you have your delicious smelling sauce here:
Of course, one of the least interesting aspects of cooking is boiling potatoes after skinning them, but here they are anyway and the two important additions to them:
I added milk and sour cream to mine, along with salt. Of course, lots and lots of garlic sautéed in butter to add as well.
“Light! Camera! Disaster!”
Of course, my “52 In 22” cooking challenge wouldn’t be complete without a little bit of technical disaster as I was showing just how easy it was to make these potatoes – because my wife Alex wasn’t here to film for me, I just set it in a ring camera holder and pressed record – enjoy!
I showed that clip to Alex, and the first thing she said was:
“You HAVE TO share this!”
So of course I did!
So there you are: a pork tenderloin in the oven, mashed potatoes ready to go, and a nice sauce for it all…now it was time to take the Tenderloin out of the oven:
As you can see, the garlic confit that I left sticking out a bit has caramelized and gotten a bit crispy, a texture I love…time now to cut it open – let’s hope my camera holds this time!
While it was a bit juicier than this photo lets on, in hindsight I would have taken it out five minutes earlier…I gave it 35 minutes, but a half hour was plenty…let’s plate it and have a look at the finished product!
There it is: Anthony Bourdain’s bacon-wrapped garlic stuffed pork tenderloin with shallot sauce over garlic mashed potatoes!
As you can see, I added some fresh parsley as well to give it a pop of color.
It’s a delicious and very nice looking dish, and let me add one bit of advice: make a lot of sauce!
It’s incredibly good drizzled over everything!
Thanks to Chef Bourdain for this terrific recipe as par of my “52 In 22” cooking challenge…he is missed by so many, but this new documentary tells the story of his life from those who know him best:
This is an honest. in-depth look at Bourdain,a nd if you are a fan of his, I recommend it highly!
Click here for the trailer and more:
I own all of the late Author’s books: his memoirs, cookbooks and fiction too!
Click here to see them all:
Thanks for following along on my 2022 cooking challenge.
I am storing all of my “52 In 22” recipes on my food website:
You can see my recent attempt to make a “Duck Pancetta Mustard Pie” thanks to an incredible cookbook by Chef Callum Franklin:
If you want to see what’s inside, click on my story here, with the recipe as well!
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Categories: 52 In 22!, Bacon, Bite Eat Swallow, Bite! Eat! Repeat!, Books / Media, Chef memoirs, Cookbooks, Eat This!, Fine Dining, Food, Food Pictures, Food Porn, Food Travel, Food Writing, Movies, Recipes, Restaurants, Travel
Bite! Eat! Repeat! 
That looks SO delicious! And thanks for leaving the easy potato video in! It gave me a good chuckle! 🙂
Yep, it made it much better to be sure!
Looks delicious, John I am loving this new series!
Thank you for reading! Heading around the world next week!
It was a fun and delicious read looking forward to the rest of the series, John 😊
I’m drooling–and I only just ate breakfast! Such fun, John. And yum–that looks delicious. I almost forgot about roasting garlic. Need to put that stuff in just about everything!
Thank you so much for the comment! I never do garlic confit but it’s so creamy and good that will change going forward!