Simple flavors

Or simply flavor. Fact is, the quality of our food nowadays is so high you don't have to mask it with a lot of spices or long cooking. It can be enough to enhance the flavor with just a little salt and pepper and butter and some basic cooking techniques.

Case in point was an easy weekday meal consisting of pan-roasted pork tenderloin and braised fennel. The single tenderloin got some salt and pepper and sat in the fridge for 4 hours uncovered. Then I seared it in the cast iron skillet for about 4 minutes and put it in a 350 oven for 20 minutes, until it reached an interior temperature of 140.

To accompany, I had cut three medium-sized fennel bulbs into five or six wedges each and sauteed those in butter and oil. Then I added 1/3 cup water, salt and pepper, and covered at a simmer for about half an hour.

I let the tenderloin rest and deglazed the skillet with some of the braising liquid from the fennel, sliced the pork and napped it with the deglazing juice, serving the braised fennel on the side.

The Niman Ranch pork from WF was tender and flavorful, cooked medium rare, with a wonderful saltiness from the early seasoning. The fennel was surprisingly sweet from the caramelizing during the initial sauteeing (I probably could have done this a little longer and gotten even more flavor). Both were exquisitely natural and unadorned, and perfectly paired.

The roasting technique was from the ever-reliable Molly Stevens and the braised fennel recipe from Susan Hermann Loomis's Cooking at Home on Rue Tatin. Fennel is not a Mediterranean vegetable so I though I'd have to go down and get Julia Child for a recipe until I spotted it in this French cookbook.

Beef short ribs with tomatoes, roasted poblanos and herbs

Celebrating New Year's Eve with friends we went to Mexico with another New Year's, we cooked a Mexican-themed dinner, courtesy of Rick Bayless.

Short ribs is one of our favorite dishes anyway, so this simple recipe, which braises the ribs in roasted and peeled poblanos, onion, garlic and tomato was an easy choice. It was also an easy dish to double and use our big Le Creuset Dutch oven. The ribs get browned and then braised in a slow oven for an hour and a half. The herb is either epazole or thyme (our choice). To accompany, we fixed the classic Mexican rice (arroz blanco), which fries the rice with onions and garlic before adding the broth to cook. Andrea baked up some of her famous corn sticks for bread.

For a starter, Andrea fixed salmon ceviche with orange, capers and roasted green chile from the same Bayless book, Mexico One Plate at a Time, and for dessert a Mexican chocolate pot de creme recipe she found online.

The short ribs were very flavorful and were a big hit, even with those who are not big red meat fans. The ceviche and dessert were also very popular. We had champagne beforehand with cute little cauliflower fritters topped with a salsa, as well as chips and guacamole.

Every time we use a Bayless recipe we resolve to do it more often; we have several of his cookbooks. Maybe this year we will!