Ginger Honey Roasted Pork Tenderloin

Daylight Saving ended. The sun set at four-thirty-five. The body felt punched. The slap is delivered every November.

The Filipino Community Thanksgiving is being planned. Lourdes is the captain. I am the lieutenant. Auntie Norma is on decorations. Auntie Rosa is on programming. Three hundred lumpia, two enormous pots of pancit, four lechon kawali, sixty pounds of pork adobo, a pan of bibingka the size of a card table. The gathering will be three hundred fifty people. Pete will cover my Thursday shift.

I made pork adobo on Saturday — the first of the three batches I will make for Thanksgiving. The recipe is Lourdes's. The recipe is also Reynaldo's. The recipe is also mine. The recipe has been three people's recipe for thirty-four years and the recipe is still developing. The blog post said: the recipe is never finished. The cooking is the finishing.

Joseph called from Kodiak on Sunday. Fishing season is winding down. He will come to Anchorage for Thanksgiving — the first Thanksgiving he has come up for in three years. Lourdes is beside herself. Lourdes had to call me three times in two hours to tell me. The third call ended with Lourdes saying, "He has not been here for three Thanksgivings. We will eat well. He will eat the lechon kawali. He will eat for an hour." I said, "Yes, Mama." She said, "I will make extra." The extra is the love.

I made bibingka on Sunday too. I gave one to Pete. He texted: "Why is this good?" I texted back: "Pandan. Banana leaf. Centuries of Filipino mothers." He texted back: "I want a Filipino mother. Send Lourdes." I laughed at the kitchen table.

The sixty pounds of pork adobo are already spoken for — that belongs to Lourdes, to Reynaldo’s memory, to the thirty-four years the recipe has been becoming itself. But between the big communal batches and the card-table bibingka, there is a quieter Sunday pork: something fast, something glazed, something that fills the kitchen with ginger and reminds you why you started cooking in the first place. This Ginger Honey Roasted Pork Tenderloin is what I make when the feast is still a week away and I need the house to smell like a reason to come home — which is, I suppose, what Joseph finally remembered too.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 25 min | Total Time: 40 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

1 1/4 lb pork tenderloin, trimmed
3 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon fresh ginger, finely grated
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon olive oil, plus more for searing
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
2 scallions, thinly sliced, for garnish

Instructions

Preheat and prep. Preheat your oven to 425°F. Pat the pork tenderloin dry with paper towels and season all over with salt and pepper.
Make the glaze. In a small bowl, whisk together the honey, soy sauce, grated ginger, minced garlic, olive oil, apple cider vinegar, and sesame oil until fully combined. Set aside 2 tablespoons of the glaze for finishing.
Sear the pork. Heat a thin film of olive oil in an oven-safe skillet over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add the tenderloin and sear, turning occasionally, until browned on all sides, about 4–5 minutes total.
Glaze and roast. Brush the remaining glaze generously over the seared tenderloin. Transfer the skillet to the oven and roast for 18–22 minutes, or until an instant-read thermometer inserted into the thickest part reads 145°F, brushing once more with glaze halfway through.
Rest the meat. Remove the pork from the oven and let it rest on a cutting board for 5 minutes. This keeps the juices inside where they belong.
Slice and finish. Slice the tenderloin into 1/2-inch medallions. Drizzle the reserved glaze over the top and garnish with sliced scallions. Serve immediately.

Nutrition (per serving)

Ginger Honey Roasted Pork Tenderloin — For the Table That Feeds Three Hundred and One