Seared pork tenderloin with caramel sauce and candied onions

Yo holmeses, after telling you guys that I would get this thing started like, 3 effin' weeks ago my plans have finally come to fruition. Now I'll be posting my cookery with some degree of regularity so as to not have to answer your questions with chronic ambivelance. I will provide you with some recipes dotted with my cynicism and love for vintage pornography. Keep in mind that I am no chef, and I don't usually measure stuff as I go. In other words, take my advice with a grain of salt (harhar) and tinker with the recipes to your liking (duh).

I don't really cook pork tenderloin often - to me it has always kind of seemed like the garbage part of the pig. Christ, who cooks a section of delicous fatty animal which is exempt from said delicious fattiness!? When you're a composite mass of both Eastern Europe and South East Asia, that's a pretty big fucking problem. Well I have found a solution which does not involve overzealous basting nor (delicious) caulfat wrapped loglets of meat. I have yet to find another fuss-free recipe that renders the meat so juicy and flavourful.

1 medium onion, julienned
1/3 cup orange juice
2 tbsp lime juice
1/3 cup fish sauce
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp white pepper
1 bird chilli, finely sliced
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
1 pork tenderloin

Dump the sugar and citrus juices into a small pot over medium-high heat and watch that bugger while it turns a nice amber-red colour. Keep your face away from the pot and add the water and fish sauce. Seriously, keep your face away, this kind of steam is not the secret to European beauty. Add the pepper, chili, and onions. Simmer for a couple of minutes and then turn off heat and leave the stuff to cool off.

Once cooled, clean up your pork tenderloin
and then stick it into a bag with the sauce. Leave it overnight - don't try to rush this, it gets seriously delicious and you need an ample dose of REM anyways (note: sleep, not alternative rock). Once you take the it out of the fridge, pat dry and observe the ring of candied flesh encasing the meat. My grade-school speculative skills tell me that this is probably why the meat stays so moist when cooked. Fyi I cut this guy in half prior to cooking because my pan is small, you could certainly do without. Preheat your oven to 425, and make sure that it gets there before you start putting shit into it.

Get an oven-proof pan good and ready with a couple tablespoons of oil with a high smoking point (not olive oil, I used peanut) and sear the pork on all sides until you've got some decent bark going. Because of its high sugar content this will happen really quickly, probably in less than 5 minutes for the entire thing, so don't step out of the kitchen. Once it's all brown and nice pour a little water into the pan, something like 1/4 cup, just to make sure you don't wreck your stuff by burning caramel drippings all over it. Stick the whole thing in the oven uncovered for somewhere around 15 minutes until it's cooked. DO NOT OVERCOOK! If you're not used to testing doneness by touch, get a meat thermometer and for christsakes test it a couple of times after the 10 minute mark. Keep in mind the meat will continue to firm up after removed from the heat. Take it out of the hotbox and cover with foil, let it rest up for 10 minutes.

Don't be a dummy and skip this step, otherwise the juices will leave the meat before entering your mouth. While it's resting, take your used marinade and reduce it down to about half over medium-high heat. I'm usually the last person to ask about food safety, but you'll want to make sure that this stuff has boiled down for at least 5 minutes. Finally, you can slice up your meat and top it with copious amounts of the now candied onions and caramel sauce. If you've cooked it nicely, the meat will have a very soft pink colour in the middle. If you overcooked it, you'll just have to enjoy this tastiness twice in order to uh..."hone your cullinary prowess".