Background: I want to hate the air fryer for so many reasons. It’s plastic. It’s poorly named. (Obviously, it’s a mini convection oven, not a fryer.) It’s a fad gadget. But this one recipe made me love the air fryer despite my inclinations. The recipe actually isn’t a recipe. It’s a series of moves, which I’ve outlined below:
- Get an untrimmed, unmarinated 2 pack of pork tenderloin and use a narrow filet knife to trim off all the fat, any pieces sticking out or flopping around, anything that looks like a different color (usually white fat, silver skin, clear membranes.) Put these in butcher paper marked “pork for grind” to grind into sausage later. You should have two cigar-shaped pink pieces of meat and about 1/2 a pound of trim.
- Freeze the trim. It will come in handy later.
- Marinate in extra dark soy sauce. I use Lee Kum Kee Premium Dark Soy Sauce. I get it at an Asian market. It looks like this. You can marinate for 20 minutes or 2 hours. I think I’ve even done it overnight, but my standard is probably about an hour. The longer you do it, the saltier and darker your meat is going to be. Turn it in the marinade halfway through to get even coverage.
- Roast it in the air fryer for 15 minutes at 370 degrees. Pull it out and check the temp for your desired doneness. I use this chart and aim for the middle of the roast, the fattest part, to be on the low end of chef temp for pork, between 135 degrees and 140 degrees. Adjust time and temp accordingly.
- Rest for 15 minutes. Cover loosely with foil.
- At this point, you have several options. I usually slice one with the thickness of a standard sharpie and serve it right away and wrap the other in the foil I used to cover it while resting to use for leftovers the next day. If you do this, pour the juices that came out during the rest back over the meat before wrapping. If you find yourself serving and eating both of them, it might be worth it to do 3 or even 4 at a time, depending on the size of your air fryer.
Why it works:
- Trimming aggressively also shortens cook time and helps convection. (I learned that last bit in a discussion about vorticity with Aaron Franklin at Camp Brisket. The way the air and smoke swirls around the meat matters.)
- Tenderloins are pricier cuts of meat, so using the trim for sausage brings the cost down.
- The extra dark soy sauce clings to the meat and the convection of the air fryer dries the outside of the meat with the clingy soy sauce quickly. This results in a roast that looks like it has a beautiful bark, but isn’t overcooked.
- The shape of the tenderloin and the short cook time mean that the different sections of the roasts come out to different levels of doneness. In my family, this is a win. My wife likes the more done end pieces and my son and I like the juicy middle pieces. Sometimes I like to just eat the end pieces and save the rare middle pieces for tacos or quick soups or stews the next day. They won’t get overdone in the reheat if they start out on the rare side.
- The rest is crucial. I sometimes rush it to 10 minutes, but never less than that. Resting makes for juicer results. Flip once in the juices during the rest.
- Leftovers are key to this recipe. It’s easily 3 meals in our house. (There are 5 mouths, but at any given meal, two aren’t that hungry.) One the first night, another the next day. But you have to properly care for the leftovers. The frozen trim is easy, but the meat can oxidize if not treated properly. If I know it’s going to be less than 24 hours before I get back to the leftovers, I’ll wrap tightly in foil. If I’m not sure, I’ll slice or dice the meat and then store the pieces in some broth, stock, or any soup I have in the fridge. Dig the pieces out and reheat in a pan with a little liquid and you have tacos. Leave in the broth and reheat and you have stew. The key is the liquid covering the meat keeps it from oxidizing and it will keep as long as the liquid does.
Mods:
- I’m curious about how the recipe would work with and even more aggressive trim. I would freeze up the roasts a bit before trying.
- If I was feeling rich, I might try this with a beef tenderloin.
- If my kids liked it, I would cover the whole thing in black pepper after the marinade.
- I usually serve this with rice or potatoes and usually a quick slaw, but I wonder about using another salty source of clingy umami to take it in another direction.
- I cut a hole in one of my air fryers and connected smoke gun to it. It’s more for ambiance than anything, but it makes the air fryer smell more like a bbq pit than a piece of plastic.
- I’d love to try the leftovers hot and cold.