Servings: 6 Prep: 15 min Cook: 15 min Total: 30 min
What a great way to ensure tender meat. Whack at it. Whack the “hey, how ya doin'” out of it! This works with pretty much anything and basically degrades the muscle to the point where “tough” becomes impossible. Yet, it still holds some level of shape, in the form of a very thin piece of quickly cooked meat. How do you do it? Hit it and… cook it!
It’s professionally done with a meat mallet, but… I don’t have one of those. I personally usually use the back of my knife and just quickly… Machine-Gun-Kelly-Style… whack at it with the back of my knife, running it up and down a flattened piece of meat. You can also use the bottom of a pot, which has more surface area. You… cover more ground (but do less damage). It’s better if you put your meat between two pieces of plastic wrap before you attack it. The meat will spread out more evenly and it will splatter a lot less. I personally most often do this with pork or chicken, but… beef, duck, calamari, abalone… whatever. It will tenderize it all!
Once the meat is thin and pounded it is cooked quickly in a pan with a light oil. After just moments, it is cooked and removed, where chicken stock, capers, and bacon bits are added. This pulls the good bits off the bottom of the pan. Then, fresh cold butter is swirled into it, giving the jus a nice sheen, enriching it with healthy fats and… thickening it a little!
Note: I came up with this recipe while eating a zero carb diet, rich in fats. This one is PERFECT for such a way of eating! YUM!
Pork Scallopini with Bacon Caper Jus
Print RateIngredients
- 2 each pork tenderloins(or equivalent pork loin)
- 1 tbsp light olive oil
- 1 cup chicken stock or broth
- 1 tbsp capers drained and coarsely chopped
- 1/4 cup bacon bits
- 1 sprig fresh rosemary
- 1/2 cup whole butter (one stick) cut into about 12 cubes
- salt and fresh cracked pepper to taste
Instructions
- Slice your pork at an angle, so that you get thin, but long cuts. You want cuts about 1/2 inch thick.
- Lightly season each piece of pork with salt and pepper.
- Place pork between two sheets of plastic wrap. You can probably fit two pieces within each double sheet of plastic.
- Pound the pork with a meat mallet, large pot or the back of your knife. Pound until the meat is roughly 1/4 to 1/8 of an inch thick. Repeat this process until all the meat has been pounded. Set the flattened meat on the side, still wrapped between the plastic sheets.
- In a large hot sauté pan, over medium-high heat, add your light oil.
- When you see the oil begin to ripple, add your pork. Depending on how the pork was cut and pounded, you may be able to fit multiple pieces. However, you want a single layer of pork, with the entire side of each piece touching the bottom of the pan, for a nice hot searing effect.
- After about 1 to 2 minutes of hot searing pork, flip and do the same thing on the other side. Once the pork is nicely browned and cooked through, set it aside somewhere warm. Repeat this process with each piece of pork, until you have cooked it all.
- In the hot pan, add your chicken stock, bacon bits, rosemary and capers.
- Reduce the sauce by about 1/2, or until it begins to very slightly, but ... noticeably ... thicken.
- Turn the heat off the pan and add a small piece of cold fresh butter to the pan and swirl it around. When one piece of butter is about halfway melted, add a second piece of cold fresh butter. When that second piece is halfway melted, add a third piece. Keep swirling in the cold fresh pieces of butter, until it has created a lovely and luxurious bacon jus. (this is done in this manner, so that the butter is incorporated into the jus, without simply melting and forming an oil slick on the top of the stock. This slow cold swirling method emulsifies it into the stock in a method known as "Monté" (pronounced "Mont-tay")).
- Serve!
STANDARD FTC DISCLOSURE: In order for me to support my blogging activities, I may receive monetary compensation or other types of remuneration for my endorsement, recommendation, testimonial and/or link to any products or services from this blog. Please note, I only ever endorse products that are in alignment with my ideals and I believe would be of value to my readers.
* Learn More: More about this recipe and nutrition …
This sounds great, and the sauce even better… I love capers, and with bacon??!! FYI the save link didn’t work, as you had warned. Any way for us to print it?
Hi Eric! Yep, this thing was great! Just make sure the stock is fairly well reduced and already beginning to thicken on its own. The butter will just help tighten it up. Maybe … use a whisk! I’m "hoping" the save thing will work tomorrow. I was told it can take some time. I’m also working on a print-friendly version … under the hood … as we speak. I plan to put out 3 versions: JUST the recipe, just the recipe with a photo and the whole recipe, with a photo and my babbling at the top. I’m "hoping" to have it done within about a week, but … we’ll see how tough it is, once I get into the meat of it. Let me know how the pork turns out!
I just made this and some steamed broccoli for the fam and everyone loved it. Hub says it is his new favorite. Thanks for a well written recipe. Easy peasy. 🙂
EXCELLENT, Judijo! This is one that can take a few pans. I’m always curious how these kinds of things turn out for people. Glad it worked as intended! Pulling off a new family favorite is a big feather in my cap, too! 🙂 Thank you for letting me know!
I made this dish tonight on my continuous quest for high-fat meals. Yummy! Although, it was caper-less as I did not check ingredients first. The only other change I made was to use beef bone broth instead of chicken. Soooo delicious! I loved it. The sauce was incredible, even sans capers. I added some green beans on the side and poured some of the extra sauce on the green beans.
Dyan, yep! It should be tasty! The beef stock would probably very slightly help to thicken it, as well! Next time, toss a few capers in there. I like the pickled edge that it give it! Oh! You should go read my piece on "how to cook". Reading the recipe before cooking it … is like the first thing! 🙂
Going to make this tonight…I would like to omit the rosemary, as it is not one of my faves…think tarragon would work? Any other suggestions?
Hi Debbie. Great! I’ve gotten lots and lots of positive comments on it. Rosemary would be great, but tarragon is not a favorite of mine. If/when I do eat or use it, I tend to picture it as something that goes with fish, citrus, salads, etc. It’s more of a "light/sweet" flavor, as opposed to something that would stand up to a heavy butter/bacon/pork dish. Another strong herb that does well with pork is sage. Always a favorite! Other than that … just be sure to reduce the stock/broth until it noticeably starts to thicken. If it’s still brothy, it’ll just be water when you’re done. Get to to noticeably thicken and then whisk in the cold butter, one piece at a time and keep it moving. If you don’t, the sauce might break. Another tip is … add a little bit of heavy cream. This will help hold it together (not much … just a tablespoon is enough). This is a FANTASTIC dish, though. I think you’ll love it. Let me know how it goes!
DJ, this one is another keeper – I lined the pan to my toaster oven with foil and preheated it to "warm" – as I cooked the scallopinis, I moved them to the warm oven. When the sauce was finished, I poured it over the meat and left it to stay warm while I finished the sides. My husband just kept telling me how great our dinner was – I told him he could thank DJ! I keep thinking I’ll make one of your recipes that I won’t like – it hasn’t happened yet!
Awesome, Viki! Thanks for the thoughts on keeping things warm, too! Look at the Chicken Piccata, perhaps … it’s similar, but with a few different tweaks. Enough to make it it’s own complete thing. If you and your husband liked this, you’re almost sure to like that!
Just freeeking fabulous!!!! Thank you!
My pleasure, Allison! 🙂
Silly question but…..would that be a total of 5 pounds of pork tenderloin for this recipe?
Hi Jodi! Half that. It’s calculated at 2 1/2 lbs. I hope that helps!
Amazing recipe!!! I didn’t have capers so added some white wine instead, it was wonderful. Thanks
Thanks, Sonja! Try sneaking some capers into it. Those pickled little flower buds bring a lot of goodness to the table. I’m glad you liked it, though! 🙂
This was awesome! I’m going to make your chicken scallopini like this because I love the addition of bacon and I didn’t care for the almond flour breading…the recipe doesn’t need it!
Unknown, I’m also not a huge fan of the breading, but … on that other recipe, it’s how it’s done (via my mother, for my father). I’d rather just have it seasoned and straight in the pan. Either will work. I’m glad you enjoyed it! 🙂
This sounds yummy, but if I was to change up and use chicken would you still need to pound it or just cut into pieces?
Hi Vee, to be a scallopini, you would still pound it out into thin slices. It’s not a requirement and if you were to use these same ingredients in a different way, you’d still have something delicious, but … to try for the core tastes and textures in this configuration … you would put the chicken between two pieces of plastic wrap or parchment paper and pound them out into thin pieces. Season and cook! I hope this helps! 🙂
I’ve been waiting all week to make this! Today’s the day. Sounds so incredible!
This one is definitely a keeper, Denise. Let us know how it turns out! 🙂
What is 1135 grams in pounds and ounces…?
I know this is a very silly question but how do you make the bacon bits? Or are they store bought?
Charlotte, it’s 2 lbs. and 8 ounces. Pamela, you can use store bought or make your own. I do both, depending on how lazy I’m feeling. I prefer homemade, though. I’ll take a lb of bacon, cut it up and put it into a frying pan and let it cook, stirring it every few minutes. Eventually all the fat will render out of it and start frying the remaining meat. When it’s all crispy fried and yummy, I strain it and put the bits on paper towels to cool. Then, I use the bacon fat to cook with! The bacon bits get wrapped up and thrown, like pixie dust, on just about everything! 😉
Hi, Capers are small to begin with. Do you need to make them smaller? Also are you slicing the tenderloin long ways or sideways?
—Reply posted by DJ on 3/29/2015
Hi Mary … Capers are small, but they’re also very strongly flavored. The idea is to more evenly distribute their strong flavors through the sauce and have a more or less consistent bite, each time. Without doing a coarse chop on them, then you’ll have 3 bites, but only one of the bites will contain a caper and … it could be overpowering, whereas the other 2 bites are on the bland side. By making them course, each bite will be more or less balanced. When slicing, slice “sideways” … across the grain … then pound the little circles. In most every instance I can think of, slicing meat is typically done against the grain (it makes it more tender … going WITH the grain can give it a stringy texture… ) I hope this helps! 🙂
Omg! Followed recipe exactly, then added sliced roasted portobellas… To die for! Yummy yum yum! 😋 😋 😋
Oh, I’ll bet! That’s a killer combo, right there. YUM!!!