What's for dinner tonight? The daily pressure to come up with a tasty, healthy option. Even though I have a Food Blog, I DO get surprised, that we need to have dinner every night. And I do tend to grab to the 5-8 easiest and well-known dishes or even take-out. I know choking, right?

One of my Facebook friends posted a Thai Pork salad from NY Times, and this inspired me to create this dish. And WOW - we loved it. The different texture and flavors worked perfectly. This one is a keeper in my house.
If you're not big on spicy food, just add a small amount of chili, so you only tickle your tastebuds.

Ingredients:

1 pork tenderloin

Marinade/dressing:

2 serrano chilies
handfull cilantro + stems
5 scallions
3 limes, zest & juice
6 garlic cloves
2-inch fresh ginger
4-5 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons fish sauce
5 tablespoons soy sauce
5 tablespoons grape seed oil
½ teaspoon salt

Salad:

½ green cabbage, thinly sliced
5 scallions, chopped
1 serrano chili, julienned
3 carrots, in thin peels
1-2 cups pearl barley grain, cooked and cooled
1 handful cilantro, chopped
10 mint leaves, chopped
a small handful roasted peanuts

Directions

Trim off the silver skin from the tenderloin and pat the trimmed tenderloin dry with paper towel. In a blender combine soy sauce, fish sauce, lime juice and zest, shallots, cilantro, half the sugar, garlic, ginger, chiles and salt. Purée until smooth. Save half of the mixture for the dressing, add the rest of the sugar to the dressing, and set aside. Marinate the pork in the rest of the mixture in an airtight container over night.

Preheat the oven to 320 ℉ (160℃).

Sear the pork in a ovenproof skillet, and roast it in the oven until meat reaches an internal temperature of 150℉ (65℃), about 20-25 minutes. Let meat rest while you prepare the salad.

In a large bowl, combine the salad ingredients, reserving the herbs and nuts.

Whisk the dressing and use just enough to dress the salad. Let the salad sit for a few minutes for the flavors to blend, then right before serving, add herbs, nuts and maybe some more dressing.

Serve the salad with the sliced pork on top, sprinkle with some more nuts.

Enjoy!