Sunday Gravy with yeah right: The Iowa Pork Tenderloin Sandwich!

Good morning everybody!

Hope everyone’s having a good weekend. Next weekend is Labor Day Weekend, which will feature substantial grillage no doubt, then the following week?

Motherfucking football!

Got a real fun one for you today. Super goddamn tasty, pretty damn easy to make and can actually double as a couple of featured menu items. That tasty looking fucker up there? That’s an Iowa pork tenderloin sandwich. Yet it can also be served as schnitzel cuz shit, it’s fucking schnitzel.

Old School Zero knows what I’m talking about. Both OSZ and I are former residents of the Quad Cities. The cities that make up the Quad Cities are Moline and Rock Island Illinois and Davenport and Bettendorf Iowa. I actually lived in each city with the exception of Bettendorf during my years there. If that dish is unfamiliar to you then you probably haven’t spent too much time in Iowa.

Hell Indiana makes a claim to this sandwich too but I’m sticking with Iowa.

This is from an episode of Man Vs Food on the Cooking Channel from Indianapolis.

Yes, I watch too much food TV.

Look at that goddamn hockey puck Casey’s holding in his hand.

Now look at the fry basket in the lower right of the screen.

This was a pork tenderloin sandwich challenge that I saw a couple of days after I started writing this post.

I’m not here to denigrate the no doubt fine folks of the Hoosier State. I’ll leave that for the people who live there but that’s one sad ass frozen cow patty if that’s your version of a pork tenderloin.

Get with the goddamn program!

Fun story: I used to own an Iowa drivers license and I was a registered voter there. Voted in my very first presidential election as a resident of Davenport Iowa.

You can find this menu item at pretty much every cafe/diner across Iowa. The origins are very simple and make sense. German immigration to the Midwest. Like I said, the meat is schnitzel, it’s just been “Iowa-fied” by putting it on a bun and adding mustard and pickles – also very German additions. Some places serve with the fixin’s like lettuce, tomato, onion and shit (even mayo!) but this was the one I fell in love with there.

Shit man, even Hardees – the Midwest version of Carl’s Junior for you West Coast folks – featured a pork tenderloin sandwich.

And yes! The tenderloin center is supposed to dwarf the bun it is served on.

Here’s a feature from the Des Moines Register that shows a map in case you want to eat your way across the Iowa Tenderloin Trail. I did NOT make that up.

It’s quick, simple and a right tasty motherfucker. Which also qualifies it as game day football food.

Let’s make one!

Iowa Pork Tenderloin Sandwich!

A pork tenderloin

Some cooking oil – maybe a cup or two

Salt and pepper to taste

1 teaspoon of granulated garlic

1 teaspoon of granulated onion

1/2 cup of flour

2 eggs beaten

2 tablespoons of milk mixed into the beaten eggs.

1 cup of panko bread crumbs

For service, hamburger buns, mustard and pickles.

Boosh!

Go ahead and get yourself a pork tenderloin.

Before we go too much further, you may be asking yourself “Has pork tenderloin been featured on Sunday Gravy before?”

Damn skippy it has. And I’m going to be making some glorious porkiness with one real soon because if you remember…

That package contains TWO tenderloins. It’s like porcine Christmas up in here!

We only need one for today so let me show you a proper storage technique for freezing the second tenderloin for future use.

Wrap the tenderloin up tightly in plastic wrap, then wrap THAT up in foil. I always write the contents and the date on the foil prior to freezing.

Handy!

Today’s dish follows the age old frying preparation of “flatten, season, dredge, cook” that all you “Fry Daddys” out there are more than fluent in.

One tenderloin should produce 4 chunks of pork that will be size appropriate for this dish so let’s cut it into quarters.

Now this part actually pains me to confess so I’m going to try to do it without getting emotional.

I….

/c’mon man you can do this

I… I trimmed the fat off OK?!

Goddammit. I did!

It makes sense science-wise what with the structural integrity and the keeping the crust on thing but that doesn’t make it any fucking easier.

Fuck!

Alright. Ready to move on.

Next we’re going to slice each piece of pork down the middle but not all the way through.

Think of it like opening a book. This will double our surface area as well as assist in the flattening.

As you can see I lined my cutting board with some plastic wrap prior to the pounding part. Next take yet another layer of plastic wrap and place it over the top of the meat then get to pounding!

I use the side of the meat hammer to flatten since we don’t need to tenderize the meat. You can even play your favorite drum line while you do this. It’s cathartic! Take out some damn frustrations.

Flatten all four pieces.

You can probably already guess which piece I’ve laid claim too. Get these as flat as possible. Again it’s SUPPOSED to be considerably larger than the bun it’s served on.

Standard operational procedure now requires us to get our dredge station ready. Let’s do just that.

Left to right that’s our seasoned flour then the egg mix, then the panko breadcrumbs. I always season the flour with the same profiles as we are cooking with today. That means it’s got salt, pepper, garlic powder and onion powder in it. Got to admit that I was real tempted to add some freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano to the panko here – you can even see the wedge of it in that picture. Then I thought – traditional motherfucker! Stay traditional. All this despite the fact that “traditional” Iowa pork tenderloin breading is crushed saltines or even crushed Ritz crackers.

I still have an unopened wedge of that cheese in my refrigerator. And I still used panko breadcrumbs. Tradition only goes so far with me.

Let’s go ahead and preheat up the oil in a large skillet. Plain old vegetable oil for frying. I almost always use canola oil for basic frying.

Medium-high heat here. Give it plenty of time to heat up. If you’re checking the temp shoot for about 360 degrees.

Grab yourself one of them pounded pieces of pork and give it a little seasoning. Same as the flour; salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder.

This step was added after cooking the first piece or “test” piece. Thought that one came out a little bland so I added additional spice. As with anything your first run will usually be the worst run and each iteration after that should continually get better.

Let’s start dredging shit!.

Next step is the seasoned flour.

Coat thoroughly on both sides. Then we’re off to Egg Wash Central!

Again, get both sides. Allow some of the egg wash to drip back into the pan. We want a thorough coating but not an excessive amount of egg wash here. Finally, into the panko you go.

This time it IS key to get plenty of breadcrumbs on there. Again allow the excess to drop off – if only to keep you from sweeping up the goddamn kitchen floor – then into the skillet it goes.

Three minutes! Set a timer. When the three minutes are up? Flip that bastard over.

Oh shit! There’s that golden brown loveliness we’re after. Now just 90 more seconds and this fucker is DONE!

As mentioned before, could we stop here? Maybe make some spaetzle, perhaps a nice mushroom gravy and serve this as a classic German dish?

The fuck you think, Wolfgang?

Fuck me, that was delicious by the way.

Goddamn right you just made schnitzel. A right proper one at that.

However today is not schnitzel day. NEIN!

Today is for making this here.

That’s fucking insane isn’t it? A bit of plain old yellow mustard and a few bread and butter pickles then slap the lid on ‘er.

This baby is ready to take out for a test drive!

I originally planned on maybe making some french fries or even onion rings to serve alongside but then realized colon health is a very serious health concern and I just couldn’t do the double grease action. Those are some salt and pepper kettle chips and they are very fucking tasty. Store bought shit is fine today. My goddamn dogs are tired and it’s been a long season of Sunday Gravy.

Let’s do the quick summation: it’s pretty fucking obvious that this is some tasty shit yes? That pork has an intense crispness to it that can probably be considered more of a “crunch.” You should probably realize that the reason the bun is there is for hand protection and a delivery method so we can shove a big goddamn tasty Frisbee-sized schnitzel strait down your pie hole right?

It is.

The mustard and pickles work perfectly here because of course they do. German remember?

The best part of this meal was the sheer nostalgia factor. I hadn’t had one of these in decades and I’ll be damned if it didn’t take me right back to 13th Ave in Moline Illinois, JUST LIKE THAT.

It’s good. It’s real good and it’s super easy to do.

So give it a go regardless of your familiarity with haute Midwest cuisine.

I appreciate you riding along on this Midwest road trip.

Always a pleasure.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend folks and I’ll see you next week for the season finale.

PEACE!