A recipe that ‘smells like Christmas’

When I was working on this recipe, a friend came into the kitchen and said, “It smells like Christmas in here.” This is the perfect holiday meal – roasted pork loin, savory stuffing, cranberries, a rich sauce, and the lovely aroma and flavor of rosemary that does “smell like Christmas.” 
 
Almost 20 years ago I started giving live cooking demonstrations as well as cooking on television. Not long after I started teaching cooking, a TV station asked me to come and do a healthy holiday meal that would be a “showstopper.” 

I worked on this stuffed pork loin for about three weeks because when you have three minutes on a morning show, the recipe has to be created in stages, scripted to make sure that the segment starts with basic ingredients and ends with a finished dish ready to eat (so the host can take a bite of real food). This recipe requires four separate pork loins to be able to demonstrate the dish inside of three minutes. 

Consequently, I made this dish about a dozen times in the first week.

It seems a bit complex but it is actually rather easy. Make the stuffing, butterfly the pork loin (you can also use a turkey breast), fill, roll up, tie and roast.

Dr. Timothy S. Harlan a.k.a. Dr. Gourmet is an associate professor of clinical medicine, assistant dean for clinical services and executive director of the Goldring Center for Culinary Medicine at the Tulane University School of Medicine.