Materials
1 pork tenderloin
1/4 cup maple syrup
1 Tbs soy sauce
2 tsp ground chili pepper
fettucini (I used whole wheat)
big bunch of baby spinach
lemon zest
red pepper flakes
1 Tbs olive oil
salt and pepper
Method
1. Put a large pot of salted water to boil and turn your grill on.
2. In a small bowl, make a little paste with maple syrup, soy sauce, and chili pepper.
3. In a large bowl where you’ll serve the pasta, mix the olive oil with red pepper flakes and lemon zest.
4. Cut the pork tenderloin in 1/4 inch slices, pound each very lightly with a mallet, and brush each side with the maple/chili glaze. Season with a little salt.
5. Place the pasta in the boiling water and start the timer.
6. Grill each slice of pork tenderloin for a couple of minutes, turn, and grill for 2 minutes more on the second side. Remove to a platter and keep warm.
7. Two minutes before the pasta is done cooking, add the baby spinach, and finish them cooking together.
8.Reserve a little of the cooking water, drain the pasta/spinach, add them to the serving bowl, mix well to combine, add some of the cooking water if necessary. Adjust seasoning with salt and pepper.
9. Serve some pasta with the pork tenderloin.
ENJOY!
to print the recipe, click here
Comments: The basic inspiration from this recipe came from Mark Bittman’s Quick and Easy Recipes from the New York Times. Adding the spinach to the same pan the pasta is cooking works quite well, but you need to be careful about the timing – overcooking the spinach could ruin the dish.
The pork tenderloin is a recipe I jotted down by hand from some online source years ago, I wish I could give proper credit, but I was unable to find it now. If you’ve never mixed maple syrup with pepper, keep this combo in mind, it’s a winner. Another great example is a recipe by the Surreal Gourmet that marinates salmon steaks with maple syrup and coarsely ground pepper for a few days before grilling. I need to make it soon in the Nano-Bewitching Kitchen because it’s an old favorite of mine.
ONE YEAR AGO: Cauliflower au Gratin
Bewitching Kitchen 
This sounds delicious Sally – I’ve never used maple syrup before in a marinade! Thank you for the idea!
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Just heard from my niece in Brazil, complaining that maple syrup is hard to find and very expensive over there… I guess honey or agave nectar could substitute. Anything BUT those fake things they sell at the grocery stores to pour over pancakes (and ruin them…. ) 😉
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Love the 15 min dinner! And love hearing about your adventures in the nano-kitchen!
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Thanks, Abby… we just about ruined a pan in the electric stove tonight, so the nano-kitchen sometimes puts up a fight. The learning curve can be steep…
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I have seen several Japanese recipe books / sites where maple syrup is used. I think it is supposed to add a sort of dark or caramelized flavor (similar to what you would get by cooking sugar and mirin down to a syrup).
Just interesting—I don’t think traditional: those little Japanese red maples people have in their gardens around here don’t look as though they would put out much syrup!
This one for book example: The Enlightened Kitchen: Fresh Vegetable Dishes from the Temples of Japan By Mari Fujii
≥^!^≤
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Great info, Tess… you are an amazing source of knowledge for Japanese cooking, I learn a lot from your blog!
Thanks for your input…
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Lovely recipe Sally 🙂 I often put maple syrup in marinades as I prefer its smoky subtle taste to honey, especially with pork.
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If maple wasn’t so expensive it would be used a lot more in our kitchen, but you are right, it has a smoky taste, superior to honey in this kind of marinade
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This looks great, I am a big fan of the salty sweet combo and this looks like it will bet the craving for that.
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OK , I have looked at two recipes and loved both cant wait to keep reading. Also I love who you have an easily printable version thanks for taking the guess work out of my computer illiteracy.
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Thanks so much, WD!
Glad you enjoyed some of the recipes, and I do think having a printable version helps, it’s something I always enjoyed in other blogs, so decided to ‘imitate” on mine. I am not that computer savvy myself, believe me – I know strictly the basics, but blogging forced me into unknown waters… 😉
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I love quick tips like adding the spinach to the pasta. And, I have to try the maple marinated salmon!
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Amazing how moving to a tiny space makes me pay more and more attention to tips that save in time and number of pans/pots used in a recipe….
by the way, I ended up ordering Donna Hay’s book Off the Shelf, after reading your adventures with it – gorgeous book, I know it will be a lot of fun to use it here – and the photography is just like in all her books, small works of art!
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