Plums, apricots, and cranberries with pork was a standard in my family recipes from Sweden and Germany so I am amazed at this concept that they do not go together. Our Sunday meal was pork loin stuffed with the above. Baked apple for desert followed.
Yes, I understand. Many people begin their lives fastidiously compartmentalizing and have difficulty mixing sweet and savory, or even letting the foods on their plates touch. Fortunately, most outgrow this. Those who don’t may be doomed to spend their lives eating at restaurants with small plate tasting menus which, if eating were equated to sex, is like six courses of foreplay. No thank you. I’ll take my chicken roasted with prunes and Armagnac and juices running everywhere.
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Pork and plums have been partnered for centuries, in both Europe and Asia,where recipes abound.
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Pork and Plums Are Ready to Mingle was a come on line in a bar in Nice I frequented.
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I never understand Western cooking and rules like “no fruit mixed with savory meat.” What is this based on? Not science. It’s not even rationally based on taste. Fruit and meat are delicious together. Asian cooking has no problem drawing from the play of contrasting flavor profiles: Salty, sour, sweet, bitter, umami. Let’s not create arbitrary rules about food like this.
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@JtA . Honey, with all my years of experience I can tell you that nothing is rationally based on taste.
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Maybe you should start posting more vegan and vegetarian recipes.. especially if factory farming is contributing to climate change.. I have to remind myself where our meat comes from..
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What? There are plenty of vegetarian and vegan recipes posted on NYT. Why do you feel the need to comment on one that happens to include meat?
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Ok, has anyone actually tried this recipe?
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@Jan Marcantonio . Honey, no one here is interested in actually trying these recipes. We are here to see our name in print.
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I made the recipe last night. Very tasty, maybe a bit less rice vinegar as it is effectively a gastrique when done this way. Didn’t get how the mint fit in, seemed like an extraneous flavor. All in all, an easy recipe and very tasty. Would do again with other similar types of meat.
@ Suzanne Fass Upper Upper Manhattan
Again, cannot type my reply below your comment.
I wholly agree with you that most of Food Section writers may expand their gastronomic horizons by including the wines to accompany their reviews, without relying on the opinions of the only wine editor of this Section.
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Applause to all culinary inventions or reinventions of long forgotten recipes. But commingling sweet fruit with meat, or -- Heaven forbid -- with fish, is not for me. Sorry.
When I eat fried or baked port, I usually make a sauce from plum preserves, soy sauce and a touch of wasabi. It goes with pork so beautifully, a combination of the redolent darkness of the pork with an aromatic, sweet, salty sauce topped by the zing of horseradish.
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Mangoes that go into salads are usually green (both the skin and flesh) and not sweet at all, so I am surprised it is being dismissed as a sweet ingredient in a savory dish.
Or is there another kinda of salad that use ripe, sweet mangoes that I am not aware of?
@Albert. Ms. Roman wrote of mango salsa, not salad. In my experience ripe mangoes are generally used for salsa. Of course, you're correct that green mangoes are used in salads.
You mean like they did 1000 years ago in China?
Oh Pluuueezz!
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Some of us grew up in households where a dish of applesauce was viewed as a proper side for almost anything. And some of us believe that mango or other fruit chutney is a fit accompaniment to many savory dishes. Alison, I'm not saying you're not entitled to your taste, but maybe you need to widen your flavor horizons? ;-)
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@Suzanne Fass I don't think you actually read the article as she states, and her recipe here includes, sweet accompaniments to savory dishes.
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