Pork Tenderloin with Ancho-Chile Sauce

…with plantains, pineapple, and sweet potato

"Pork Tenderloin with Ancho-Chile Mole," from Make It Like a Man!

What an interesting dish this is! I love fruit in a savory context, and the pork tenderloin, rather than getting lost, shines through beautifully in this mélange of complex tastes and varied textures. The flavors in the sauce tie it all together, while giving it the most gracefully tantalizing spiciness.

This dish maybe would be a bit much to tackle after a hard day’s work, but it’s a breeze on non-work day. Each of the components is quite quick and easy … it’s just that there are a lot of them. Pork Tenderloin with Ancho-Chile Sauce is perfect for an I’d-love-to-cook-for-you date. Easily doubled, it’s also great for company. Yet it’s painless enough on the cook that you’ll feel as though you hardly did anything by the time you sit down to eat, so long as you give yourself ample prep time.

What you need to serve 2 with leftovers, 3 without:

For the sauce

3 cups water
3 ancho chiles
¼ white onion
1 garlic clove
Coarse salt
½ tsp cinnamon
⅛ tsp clove (or less, to taste)

For the tenderloin

1 sweet potato
¼ cup olive oil
1 ripe plantain, peeled and cut in ½-inch-thick rounds
2 one-inch-thick slices fresh pineapple, peeled
1 lb. pork tenderloin
Freshly ground black pepper
Minced parsley (optional)
White rice, for serving (optional)

How to do it:

  1. Start by bringing the water to a boil. Meanwhile, seed the chiles and discard the stems. Coarsely chop the onion. Peel the garlic. Heat a 12-inch, cast-iron skillet over a medium-high flame until it’s quite hot, at least 3 minutes. Lay the chiles into the skillet and cook them for 1 minute, turning occasionally, until they’re soft and fragrant. Transfer the chiles to a medium-sized bowl, pour the boiling water over them, cover the bowl, and let the chiles soak for 20 minutes. (In the meantime, work on the tenderloin prep.)
  2. Once the chiles have soaked, strain them, reserving the liquid. Transfer the chiles to a blender; add the onion, garlic, and ½-cup of the soaking liquid. Process on speed 4 (of 6) until perfectly smooth (about 30 seconds), adding more liquid only if necessary to create a thick, smooth, pourable purée. Season with salt, to taste (perhaps ¾-tsp). Add cinnamon and clove; process to blend (about 7 seconds). Check seasoning.
  3. Cook the sweet potato. You can do this via several methods: microwave, roasting, boiling. In the end, you’ll want an optionally peeled, perfectly cooked sweet potato. Slice it into ½-inch-thick wedges.
  4. Heat the oil over medium-high heat to the shimmering point, in the same skillet you used for the chiles. Add the plantains and cook until beautifully brown, about 3 minutes. Flip and brown the other side of the rounds, about 2 minutes – checking carefully that they don’t over-brown. Transfer to a couple layers of paper towels.
  5. Add the pineapple to the pan, and brown it on both sides, about 1 minute per side. Off heat. Transfer pineapple to a cutting board, and when cool enough to handle, slice it into triangles (or another attractive shape) and discard the core. Keep the potato, pineapple, and plantains warm, or plan to reheat them at serving time.
"Pork Tenderloin with Ancho-Chile Mole," from Make It Like a Man!
  1. Cut the tenderloin into six, (roughly) equal-weight pieces. Turn the pieces so that one of their cut sides is down on the cutting board; the end pieces leave as-is. Place a sheet of wax paper over one of the pieces, and use the bottom of a heavy, solid, tumbler (or something similar) to pound the pork into an even, ½-inch thickness. Transfer the paper to the next piece, and repeat the process until you’ve turned all the pieces into small steaks. Season them somewhat generously with salt and pepper. Over a med-high flame, reheat the skillet until the oil you used for the fruits returns to the shimmering point. Add the pork (probably in batches), cover the pan with a spatter screen, and cook until darkly browned and done to your preference: about 5 minutes on one side, 3 minutes on the other. Meanwhile, transfer the sauce to a small saucepan and gently reheat it. If it comes to a boil, off heat and cover. If it gets too thick, stir in a small amount of the remaining cooking liquid.
  2. To plate, create a bed of sauce, top it with pork, surround it with the fruits and veggies. You may not need all the sauce, nor all the fruits and veggies, even if serving three people. (Give the pork a garnish of parsley, and serve the rice separately.) Serve immediately.

Notes:

In terms of timing, the sauce, potato, and fruits could all be prepared hours in advance, kept at room temperature, and reheated. The pork could be sliced, pounded, and refrigerated in advance.

Best freshly made. Not bad leftover, but missing some of the nuance.

In terms of accompaniment, a full-bodied, neutral red wine would work well. Anything coming before (a salad, perhaps) or after (maybe homemade ice cream) should be unassuming and require little or no on-the-spot attention.

If you want to take some short cuts, you could easily buy chunks of fresh pineapple at most grocery stores. At a well-stocked, upscale salad bar, you could also likely find cooked sweet potato.

An ancho chile is a Poblano chile that’s been dried. You cannot substitute a fresh Poblano for this recipe.

Don’t toss the unused chile cooking liquid. Use it to rehydrate dried beans, and/or as a base for a pot of chili.

Cooking four sweet potatoes takes almost no more effort than cooking one. I suggest you cook four, and find a way to enjoy the others as a snack or as part of another dish or meal.

If you’re unfamiliar with plantains, you should know that a banana would not be a good substitute. It’s easy to find plantains at most good-quality groceries these days; ripe ones have patchy black skins or even fully black skins. That same look on a banana would mean it was way, way, disgustingly past prime, but on a plantain, that look is perfection. This is important, because a plantain that looks like a perfectly ripe banana is in fact quite unripe, and an unripe plantain is hellishly horrifying to try to eat. Plantains, like bananas, will ripen on the countertop; they’ll do so quite quickly if you store your plantains on top of a bunch of bananas overnight.

You can cut the pineapple and then sauté the pieces if you wish, turning them once during the process (they don’t need to brown on all sides). You could also prepare the pineapple (and the pork) in a grill pan or on a grill.

"Pork Tenderloin with Ancho-Chile Mole," from Make It Like a Man!
Pork Tenderloin with Ancho-Chile Sauce

This dish is a modest re-shaping of one from The ¡Salpicón! Cookbook (Satkoff and Satkoff 2008, 123). Credit for images on this page: Make It Like a Man! Thank you, Kesor. This content was not solicited by anyone, nor was it written in exchange for anything. 

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35 thoughts on “Pork Tenderloin with Ancho-Chile Sauce

  1. This dish certainly looks like a ‘winner.’ I’m glad you’re using smoky-flavored ancho chiles instead of serrano ones (too hot)! I like the combo of the sweet, spicy and starchy flavors- I’ve printed this recipe off to make in the future- thanks!

  2. This looks quite scrumptious! A lot more on that plate than I first thought. So many flavors and textures and how can one go wrong with an ancho sauce, pineapple and pork. So good!

  3. I’m a big fan of Ancho chiles. I love the smoky flavor — and how fabulous to combine it with sweet pineapple. What a great meal this is! 🙂 ~Valentina

  4. Such a great meal! The pork tenderloin is absolutely perfect and juicy and pairs so really well with sweet potatoes and plantains for a satisfying meal. I used to eat almost everything a chili sauce, but these days my stomach is really sensitive that I almost give up anything too spicy.
    angiesrecipes recently posted…Chocolate Pear Cake

  5. This looks so good Jeff. A definite must-try for me. I enjoy sweet, spicy and savory dishes and this one hits all those likes. We don’t get plantains over this way so I’m thinking I’ll use green banana instead. I see this on our table for Friday night dinner.
    Ron recently posted…Happy Saint Lucia and let the Jullov begin…

  6. Just reading through the list of ingredients here Jeff and I saw “plantain”. Ah you’re taking me back to my holidays in Africa there where this is a staple. I loved it, and it was the first place I tasted plantain! I just cannot get it here in the U.K. But the rest of the dish looks amazing. One to have in place of a Sunday Roast I think!
    Neil recently posted…No-Bake Tia Maria Cheesecake

    • What a bummer that you can’t get plantains! Glad you’ve had them, though. They’re so good.

  7. Now this sounds delicious, Jeff. Ancho chilies really bring a flavor boost, and I love how you designed this recipe around the ancho. The sweet and spicy combo here sounds tasty!
    David @ Spiced recently posted…Eggnog Cream Pie

  8. We always serve pork on Christmas Eve and your tenderloin has just become a contender! So flavorful and delicious!!

  9. Wow, Jeff… What an interesting combination of flavors and textures! You’re right… This is perfect for a day off, or perhaps a day when you can get home in an hour or two early. Ancho chiles are really big here in the Southwest, and now you can see why!
    David Scott Allen recently posted…I’m Bananas For This Pie

    • Oh, I hope you do try plantains with pork – they’re good with just about anything, though!

  10. Looks like a dinner party meal that would get all the raves! The only part I’d omit are the plantains, not a fan!
    Sorry I’ve bee AWOL but we just returned from a month-plus in Arizona! We had three sets of friends join us for 5-6 days each! It was definitely whirlwind but super fun! Now I need a vacation! Merry Christmas, hope you have a wonderful new year that’s filled with good health and much happiness!
    Eva Taylor recently posted…No-Knead Sourdough Bread

    • Glad you were able to enjoy some warm Arizona weather! Merry Christmas to you, too!

  11. This looks like a wonderful dish – I love cooking with pork tenderloin and your recipe is most certainly a fabulous inspiration to cook it in yet another delicious way. I like that you used warm spices in the sauce and your presentation looks very inviting – what a perfect mid-week dinner!
    Andrea recently posted…Elisenlebkuchen (Traditional German Gingerbread)

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