Honey Mustard Roasted Pork and Pear

I love this dinner.

It is simple, quick to prepare and the oven does most of the work for you. You can come home from work, chop and peel some veggies, throw it in the oven and relax for an hour. And the best part is, it tastes like you've had to work for it.

The honey mustard mix is absolutely fabulous - sweet and salty at the same time. The vegetables and pears soak up the mix, and they develop this sweet kick which is just heavenly. Combined with the lovely, fresh, soft pork, this is an easy weeknight dinner everyone will enjoy.

My Mum was the one who told me how to do this. So if the recipe is from somewhere else I do apologise and give them full credit. But I had bought these pork fillets (they were on sale) and I called her to ask what I should do and she told me this was a fabulous dinner. And boy, was she right.

Also, I know the calorie content is high for those counting calories, but it's not that bad, and it's because this dinner is full of amazing, good-for-you veggies. And pork is definitely a nice meat.

Ignore the awful pictures. No light. Cannot wait until I get light back at nighttime and I can stop making an insane amount of excess food so I can take pictures the following morning in proper light.

Level of Difficulty: One of the simplest dinners ever

Average Cost: Depends on the cost of pork – we make this when the pork is on sale

Main Ingredients: pork and pear

Occasion: Dinner

Menu Options: You can roast any vegetables you want – I just chose some of my favourite ones. Although chose ‘sweeter’ vegetables as the honey and roasted pears create a sweet base for the dish and the honey mixture will likely run over the other vegetables when roasting. Therefore, chose sweet vegetables.

Serves 4

What you need:

1 large sweet potato, diced into large pieces

5 small potatoes, peeled and quartered

2-3 carrots, depending on size, peeled and diced into large pieces

½ butternut pumpkin, diced into large pieces

2 pears (I used Buerre Bosc pears because I find they roast perfectly and are better for cooking), cored and sliced into 4 or 8 pieces per pear

2 pork fillets (around 800g of meat in total)

2 tbsp wholegrain mustard

2-4 tbsp honey

 

What to do:

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Oil a large roasting pan – I used vegetable spray. Place a sheet of baking paper down over the bottom of the tray – honey is used in this recipe and this stops the bottom of the tray from burning.

In a large bowl, combine sweet potato and potato. Oil and salt the vegetables. Mix oil and salt through vegetables with hands.

Place the potatoes and other vegetables in the pan.

Slice any fat from the pork fillets – there shouldn’t be too much, as fillets are not very fatty pieces of meat.

On one piece of meat, on the side facing up, place ½ tbsp of wholegrain mustard and ½-1 tbsp of honey. Using a spoon, spread this mix over the surface of the pork fillet.

Repeat the above step for the other side of the pork.

Repeat the above two steps for the other fillet. Therefore, you will use up all of the mustard and honey listed in the ingredients bit by bit. Use more honey if you prefer the taste of that to mustard.

Place the pork in the centre of the baking tray and spread the vegetables around it. Place the pears near the pork so they soak up the honey mustard mixture.

Roast the pork and vegetables for one hour. Halfway through cooking time, flip the pork over so the other side is facing up. If necessary, move veggies and pears around so all cook evenly. The pear may seem like it is cooking really fast, if so, move it away from the pork and under other veggies.

Once roasted, take pork from oven. Allow to rest for a few minutes while you serve the veggies and pear. Slice the pork thinly. Serve warm, with applesauce if you like.