Pork Scaloppine with Mushrooms in Cream

Wednesday 23 January

Our attentive reader (you know who you are) will have long since gathered that though we love good food, we are thrifty (read: cheap).  So we buy the more expensive ingredients (read: meats) when they go on sale, cut them into serving portions, and freeze them to become dinner as necessary.  
This is nowhere truer than with pork.  We generally buy a whole tenderloin when Bigg's has the unadulterated ones for under $2.00 a pound.  Then we cut the monster up: a six-serving loin for roasting, two mini-loins for roasts or casseroles for four, and lots of packets for two, some with two thick medallions, others with five thin scaloppine (two for Barbara, three for Holt).  The latter defrost fastest, especially when we do the trick of putting each slice in a pleat within one long sheet of saran wrap, so they pull apart easily, the whole then wrapped in stout foil to avert freezer burn.

Tonight's meal was made with the latter, patted with fresh thyme leaves and salt, fried for just a minute on each side, and set aside to rest while sliced button mushrooms went into the same pan.  When they had fried up brown, we threw in more thyme leaves and a few pink peppercorns, doused them with heavy cream, and let it bubble until thick.  

A great combination, with the pink peppercorns inspired by our long-lost favorite restaurant, the American Bistro in Morton, Pennsylvania (its chef-owner, Robert Rottensteiner, has apparently now opened a New American Bistro in nearby Ridley Township - next time we visit PA, we're so there).