When Daniel Eddy of Rebelle came to visit our rooftop garden, some of our produce wasn’t at its optimum state of ripeness. No matter. Daniel is resourceful, and came with a plan, anyway.
Daniel seems totally in his element while picking stuff out of the soil and tasting herbs straight off the plant, and when he talks about his childhood, it’s no surprise as to why. Daniel lived in Nicaragua until he was five years old, and many of his memories of childhood are less of eating sugary cereal out of a box and more along the lines of visiting a local farmer and watching him slaughter pigs. Instead of reminiscing about bygone flavors of Lunchables, Daniel recalls picking blueberries with his grandfather on Martha’s Vineyard. (He’ll end up using some of ours in a granita.)
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As the chef at Rebelle, Daniel makes food that is decidedly French (a.k.a. rich) without being fussy. A lovely, fatty cut of meat is the star of the show, and won’t need any overly complicated treatments or excessive accoutrements. He’s brought a pork tenderloin and a rather large container of lardons—a sweet, smoky pork dish is just on the horizon.
He starts with a generous sprinkle of salt on the pork tenderloin, and heats the lardons and some shallots (skins on!) in oil in a cast-iron pan.
Meanwhile, to prepare for the granita, he simmers fresh-picked lemon verbena, chamomile, and thyme in water, then adds sugar, lemon juice, vinegar, and bitters. When the sugar has fully dissolved, he strains the mixture and pops it in the freezer for later.
The lardons and shallots make their way into our inferno-hot oven for a few moments to impart the shallots with a little bit of blackened sweetness.
And trust us when we tell you that the kitchen was smelling absolutely incredible at this point—like Bacon Heaven. We now know that Bacon Heaven is real, and it’s a place on Earth.
Once the tenderloin was cooked and cut, it was time to assemble all of the components of Daniel’s dish, which he would soon dub “Pigs in a Garden,” for fairly obvious reasons. He cooked the pork sous vide, but you can pan-roast it at home to juicy perfection.
And we hadn’t forgotten about the granita, either. After stirring it and scraping it every 30 minutes or so for a few hours, our sweet lemon-thyme ice had adopted a wonderfully slushy texture. Daniel finished it with anise hyssop, dried blueberries, and a few of the tiny, super-sweet Reine des Vallées strawberries from the garden.
The result was the most refreshing dessert one could ask for on a hot, muggy New York day.
As for the pork, fat slices of it were surrounded by the melt-in-your-mouth roasted garlic and shallots; the crispy lardons; and a mixture of greens, scallions, heirloom radishes, and chives tossed in a simple vinaigrette.
And that, friends, is how you do a pork dish that both screams summer and feels French as hell. Or heaven. Bacon Heaven.