Honey Sesame Tenderloin for Mom's Birthday

Yesterday was my Mom's birthday.  Hubby and I had the family over for dinner to celebrate Mom.  Almost everyone local could attend so we had a full house.  We decided to make a recipe that I love for the dinner.  I got this recipe from my friend, Gloria, many years ago.  Gloria is under hospice care now but she was a lovely and gracious hostess when she was well.  She also gave me the Raspberry Cream Cheese Coffee Cake recipe.  It's one of my favorite recipes.

You will have to read closely as I am going to share the original recipe, which serves 4.  Then I adapt and overcome to serve 20. 

Honey Sesame Tenderloin

1 pound whole pork tenderloin

1/2 c. soy sauce *I used GF

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 T. grated fresh ginger

1 T. sesame oil

1/4 c. honey

2 T. brown sugar

4 T. sesame seeds

Combine the soy sauce, garlic, ginger and sesame oil.  Place the tenderloin in a heavy plastic bag, pour the mixture over the tenderloin to coat. Let marinade overnight in the fridge,  Remove the pork from the marinade and pat dry.  Mix the honey and brown sugar in a shallow pan.  Place the sesame seeds in a separate shallow pan. Roll pork in the honey mixture, coating well. Then roll in the sesame seeds.  Roast in a shallow pan at 375 degrees for 20-30 minutes.  Slice thinly and serve.

Dinner for 20

I purchase the huge pork loin at Costco.  Hubby cuts the fat off so the marinade gets to the meat.   Marinade in a 2 gallon zip bag.  I used four times the marinade ingredients as the original recipe.  I cut the pork in half.  I use my large roaster with a rack.  I let it drip dry instead of patting it dry.

At this point I make some hot sudsy water in my small side kitchen sink.  That way I can easily wash my hands in between the layers

 I drizzle the honey heavily and then pat with brown sugar and sprinkle the sesame seeds on the pork.

Pat the mixture to the pork loin.

Turn it over and repeat on the other side.  

 I pat the ingredients around to the sides as well.  Preheat your oven to 450 degrees and cook for 10 minutes to give it a nice browning.  Turn it down to 325 degrees.  It takes about 2 hours. I use a meat thermometer with a wire to the pork and a read out gadget on the counter.  I think we let it get to 155 degrees.  Hubby and I thought it was cooking too fast so we turned it down and then frantically turned it up at the end.  Thankfully, it's a pretty forgiving piece of meat.

 The reason I haven't shared this recipe before is that I forget to take pictures when it comes out of the oven.  I was determined to remember yesterday but again I forgot.  It gets a little frantic at the end when we have dinner for 20.  The pork came out to rest and the butternut squash needed to be roasted, the guests had arrived and the rest is history.

There is no beautiful, delicious looking picture of the Honey Sesame Pork Tenderloin so you'll need to make it yourself to see the end result.

This is a recipe I get requests for over and over so I have wanted to share it on the blog.  I just kept trying for the end result photo.  Again, no deal.

 We set up dinner buffet style.  Everyone sat where ever they wanted.  I have large clear glass plates I use for buffets.  They are bigger than most plates and so they work well if you have guests with their plate on their lap.  I served the Heidi's Chicken Rice (I just looked for the link and realized I haven't shared Heidi's Chicken Recipe on the blog. Now that's something to look forward to in 2015, I'll share it soon.) with the pork along with roasted squash, corn, a green salad and fresh fruit and dinner rolls.  We had ice cream cake for dessert.  My siblings brought the salad, fruit and cake. 

It was a fun evening celebrating Mom with family. 

Happy Birthday to my Mom!