I’m going to start with the question this week, because it fires up some fun possibilities, pun intended.
From Julie comes this inquiry: When you use the broiler setting on your oven (not a separate broiler area, like in the old days), do you leave the door ajar? Seems crazy, but someone told me to always leave it ajar.
The short answer is to look up the user instructions for your make and model of oven. Sorry to not be more helpful, but the Internet has got your back here.
With some you do have to leave the door ajar (and when necessary, I cram a folded-up towel or mitt in so it stays partially open), because there’s a thermostat that turns the broiler off when it gets too hot. These are usually older ovens.
Some you have to close. Mine, at home, you close.
Now let’s chat about broiler cooking more generally.
Fun fact: The broilers you might see in a commercial kitchen, which have an open, slide-in rack and are always on, are called salamanders! These 800-degree broilers provide intense, fiery heat (to finish rather than cook, like cheese on top of French onion soup), so named for a mythical version of this creature that thrives in fire.
Also, the metal plates used to cook under them are called sizzle plates. Sizzle-a-rama, baby.
Think of a broiler in your oven as an upside-down grill. Things that you can grill outside, you can also broil. Steak, for example, is great under a broiler. I suppose you could broil hamburgers and hot dogs, though I’ve never tried.
The difference between putting a pan on your stove and putting something under the broiler is the difference between direct heat and flat heat: Direct heat chars; flat heat burns. Do you want those nice crispy bits on your steak tips? You want to put them on the grill or, without that option, you can broil them. I have absolutely done that.
I just got back from a couple of weeks working for the Portland Winter Light Festival in Oregon. I am a big fan of fire … in the right situations, but not when it is raging out of control in your oven.
Fatty foods, such as steaks, can flare up and catch on fire in the broiler just as they do on a grill.
This is important! The first thing to do if food catches fire is to turn off the broiler immediately and close the oven door to starve the flames of oxygen. Leave it closed. Do not use water, as it can cause a dangerous oil-and-water explosion. If flames persist, in any situation, you can use a lot of baking soda to smother the fire. And always, always, always keep a kitchen fire extinguisher – make sure it is a kitchen model – near your stove. Always. (To reiterate, you do not want to put water on a grease fire.) I also keep a fire blanket in my kitchen.
Now that I have scared you, I have this awesome recipe to share. This is unlikely to have a fire issue, because pork tenderloin is lean and you are not going to add fat, or anything flammable. So fear not, and enjoy.
Dry rubbed and broiled pork tenderloin
Be sure what you are getting is pork tenderloin, not pork loin. A tenderloin is much thinner than a pork loin, and much richer in flavor. Often they come two to a pack, and they keep well to eat cold later.
The “recipe” for the rub is more suggestion than law, and when I say “parts” in describing the ingredients, I am giving only a rough equation. Don’t worry about precision or amount. The rub scales up and down well and keeps for multiple cookings if you make extra.
The sugar is going to brown and create crispy bits. Just keep an eye on the cooking to keep the dish from burning; some blackening is okay.
Ingredients
Pork tenderloin (or 2)
and a dry rub of:
4 parts paprika
4 parts brown sugar or maple sugar (Yum!!)
1 part ground cumin
1 part ground coriander
1 part garlic powder
1 part dry marjoram
1 part salt
Rub the pork tenderloin(s) liberally with the mix, all over. Place on a sheet pan on top of foil and slide under your broiler on the highest point in the oven. Broil on high for 4 minutes, then rotate the meat a quarter-turn. Continue to broil on each of the sides for 4 minutes. The pork should look cooked and can have brown and crispy spots.
You want your pork to be medium rare. While you are highly unlikely to get trichinosis, which is really a thing of the past, you do want the outside of your pork to be cooked fully for standard food-borne illness reasons.
If you have an instant-read thermometer, check that the internal temperature is at 135 degrees. Alternately, if you are free and easy like me, putting pressure on the meat should feel about the same as pressure between your thumb and forefinger on the top of your hand. (This hack works for steak too.)
Always rest meat before cutting it. This allows the heat to distribute evenly throughout the meat, so it will not dry out when you slice it. Ten minutes is good. Slice the tenderloins against the grain, into rounds. I like to serve them with some currant or blackberry jam and mashed potatoes.
Send cooking questions to JJ Gonson, a personal chef at Cuisine en Locale, at [email protected].