Fair Warning: I made this not once, but twice in the last week.

The weekend before the one I’m enjoying right now was full of cooking. A friend and I spent a good amount of time together respecting each others’ skills, scheming up meals and projects, and visiting our friend across the bay, the Berkeley Bowl (at which I found out they now have a second location??!?!!?!!! Why is it not in SF!?!?!!).

We were to make pesto and apricot chutney, together. We ran out of time, and I took on the easier project of pesto–my friend–let’s call her the “other C” took on the chutney. I’ll include both recipes, which were inspired from these blog entries.

For the Pork:

1 pork tenderloin
1/4 C brown sugar
juice 1 lime
1 tbsp chili powder
1/8 C olive oil
several cloves garlic, minced
salt & pepper

Mix ingredients above, smooth over trimmed tenderloin and seal in container or ziplock to marinate at least 1 hr. The more thick you make (the more like a paste) the more the marinade will actually flavor the meat.

When ready to cook, heat grill to high. Slap the puppy on there, reduce heat to medium, cover. Turn it ~3x, whatever it takes to get each side on the grill, until its mostly firm but not stiff. Take it off, let it rest, slice it up. Note that tenderloin is OK to cook medium (or less than well done) even though it’s pork, because it’s a single cut of meat that hasn’t been exposed to bacteria (the outside has, and it’s been burnt!).

For the Apricot Chutney (with forthcoming commentary from “the other C”):

2lb ripe apricots
1 1/2 C brown sugar
1 medium onion
3/4 C golden (sultana) raisins
1 tsp fresh ginger, grated
1 T salt
1 C or scant cider vinegar
1 tsp coriander seeds
3 cloves (or heck, I say more!) garlic
cayenne to taste
1 jalapeno, minced
zest of 1 lime

Rinse, halve, pit the apricots; slice the onion & garlic thin. Put all the ingredients but the cayenne in a large pan and boil until the apricots are very soft. Remove the apricots and reserve. Boil the remaining liquid until it is a thick syrup. Reincorporate it all, add & adjust the cayenne, serve it up or let it cool and seal it. Take steps you would in jam making for sterilization if you’d like this to last a while, otherwise use it within a few days.