Davydd

There have been numerous inquiries and discussions on the many food related Internet forums including this one about serving snacks for Super Bowl parties centered on the signature foods of the two cities, Chicago and Indianapolis. It seems most can quickly suggest the famous Chicago deep dish pizza or the Chicago style hot dogs for Chicago but then most people outside the Hoosier state are stumped about Indianapolis. I'm drawing the line and making my suggestion. It is not corn or popcorn, it is not fried chicken, it is not beans and corn bread, it is not green bean casserole, and save the sugar cream pie for dessert. It is the famous Indiana breaded pork tenderloin sandwich - a sandwich that has its roots in Indiana and is very popular throughout the breadbasket Heartland of the Midwest, but is relatively unknown beyond. The problem is the breaded pork tenderloin sandwich is one giant of a sandwich if done right to live up to its reputation and will fill you up, muscle out other snacks and have you napping by the fourth quarter of the big game. I don't think anyone wants that. So, to make it more feasible, here is the mini pork tenderloin sandwich appetizer. What is it? It is a mini deep-fried breaded pork tenderloin sandwich of about a minimum of 2 inches to not more than 4 inches in size and served with small dinner rolls. If in Chicago you could substitute the dinner rolls with crustless white bread and slather them with gravy, but please don't. As you might infer it is not a signature food for Chicago in the way I am preparing them. I have presented many breaded pork tenderloin sandwiches and how they are prepared in porktenderloinsandwich.com so we can skip the basics and concentrate on the differences. I started with a package of pork tenderloins. They typically come packaged in pairs and weigh a bit over a pound each. Normally I can get about four sandwiches out of one tenderloin but in making the mini I found I could easily get twelve or more tenderloin pieces out of one by simply cross cutting pieces not more than 3/4 inches thick. Pounded flat the ranged from nearly 3" by 4" from the thickest part down to about 2" x 3" toward the end. They ended up about 1/4" thick on the average with three quick poundings with my favored Marples mallet. They were just right for the small 2" x 2" dinner rolls. Marinating and breading was the same as for the larger standard pork tenderloin sandwiches. In frying I found I could batch fry several at a time in my fryer anywhere from four to six. I used a deep fryer but I think these are small enough that you could easily fry them in a skillet. I fried them 3minutes at 360 degrees F. Here is the result. I don't say bon appetite. I say just dig in and enjoy!

Stay tuned on the mini porkies. They will be coming up shortly.

According to a feature on the Food Network's Food Finds show title "Racing Around Indiana" last year it was claimed that Hickoryworks was the only operations that made syrup from the Shagbark Hickory tree. With a sudden interest in such a short time they are probably overwhelmed. It's not like Maple syrup that just about everyone makes and it is made from the shagbark and not the sap.

Daniel, Per the thread that mentioned the mini breaded pork tenderloin sandwiches, that is Indianapolis' culinary contribution for the Super Bowl. You could make full size sandwiches but eating one would overwhelm the rest of the food and have you napping by the 4th quarter. This is what I mean... Just about every restaurant, bar or grill in Indianapolis that has sandwiches on its menu will have a pork tenderloin sandwich. I haven't found another big city that can come close. Heck, I found six restaurants so far serving them in the small (12,000 population) city of Speedway that is completely surrounded by Indianapols. Need ideas and inspiration? Plenty of it on my web sites.

I am committing myself to making the mini breaded pork tenderloin sandwiches. It is kind of a challenge to follow through with the idea. I made one by default over the holidays for my 3-1/2 year old granddaughter but she didn't eat it. One of the adults gobbled it up. I since found others have done it. The 5th owner of Nick's Kitchen in Huntington, IN where the breaded pork tenderloin sandwich was started in 1908, prepared them in the past as appetizers for gatherings.

This is the third board the subject of Superbowl food came up representative of the teams. My suggestion is mini breaded pork tenderloin sandwiches served more as finger food or appetizers instead of making full fledged sandwiches. What I would do is take the tenderloin and cross slice it about 1/4" thick and pound to about no more than a 3" patty. Bread it and fry it and serve with those mini heat and serve dinner rolls. The idea first came to me last month when I went to a new restaurant in Excelsior, MN, Jake O'Connor's Irish Pub. They served a platter of beef tenderloins sliced thin and served on mini buns. My first thought was why not do this with pork tenderloins. Yeah, I might do it myself.

Last night I went to Grumpy's Bar in downtown Minneapolis and had a pint of Surly Brewing Co.'s Bender. It is a fairly new local micro brewery.

It really is all about location. Midtown Global Market will eventually die just as Riverplace did. Nice building to remodel but just in the wrong location. Too many developers get enticed by remodeling historic or unique buildings without understanding the dynamics. The East Lake neighborhood is to buried in poverty with little enducement to redevelop considering the energy is all near downtown in Elliot Park, the warehouse district and around the new Guthrie. Even those areas are starting to wane a bit. There are some inner city successes such as Uptown, 50th & France and Grand Avenue. Levain had an uphill battle in being located practically alone in a moderate priced neighborhood charging upscale prices. Most people wouldn't even know how to find it let alone find a place to park. It seems most discussion centers on the urban core as a necessity to have a restaurant. The population of the Twin Cities is a 5 to 1 ratio of suburbs to Minneapolis/St. Paul combined. There are some fine establishments in the suburbs. It is not all Chilies, Big Bowl, Don Pablos and Applebees. Excelsior has two very first rate restaurants in Biella and Jake O'Connor's that maybe the city folk ought to give a try. They have moderate independent choices in Hazellwood Grill and Big Buck Roadhouse near Excelsior and there are several others. They don't have to come to the city. Best BBQ? Bet you all didn't know it could probably be Baker's Ribs in Eden Prairie. I ventured downtown last night but I did not spend a lot of money. I went to Grumpy's Bar Downtown on Washington Avenue and a breaded pork tenderloin sandwich. I drove 25 miles one way for it. As for Levain, we checked it out last year and then opted for Adrian's Bar down the street.

If anything it could be in your mind. When I drink from this mug the coffee always tastes better.

I bought the book Ambitious Brew, but right now it is on my to read later list. Interesting commentary here. I just finished a book on beers and ales that I enjoyed. That was An Inebriated History of Britain by Peter Haydon. It is a march through history starting with the origins of ale in Britain right up to the modern days. Another book I read, Beer Blast: The Inside Story of the Brewing Industry's Bizarre Battles for your Money by Philip Van Munching is more contempory and maybe slanted centered around Heinekin's marketing efforts in America.

Could of fooled me. I'm pure Midwesterner and I never heard that term until reading message boards online.

I've looked at a lot of recipe sites (and there are a lot of them) but they seemed kind of restricted in format. This pushed me to making my own web pages with recipes and tutorials because I can't do anything without pictures. Of course, for right now I am a one food person. Here are two examples of recipe presentations... 2006 Holiday Pork Tenderloin Sandwich Breaded Pork Tenderloin Sandwich Tutorials

Definitely the pork tenderloin sandwich. It's origins may very well be in Indiana unless someone can present documented proof that they predate Nick's Kitchen in Huntington, IN circa 1904-1908. They are very popular in Iowa and outstate Illinois as well. You will find them in the bordering states to those three and then they die out completely with the exception of a few novelty presentations and expatriots of those three "I" states opening restaurants elsewhere. Here are some tasty examples... Nick's Kitchen, Huntington, IN The Red Onion, Sheridan, IN Muldoon's, Carmel, IN

I know what I would do with a pork loin. Pound it, bread it and deep fry it.

Here is an interesting movie showing two ways to prepare pork tenderloins... http://www.porkpeople.com/retail2/videocli..._tenderloin.mov

My expertise is the breaded pork tenderloin sandwich. Four pork tenderloins will yield easily 16 good size sandwiches. That is a lot of tenderloin for one meal fixed in any fashion.

That web page unfortunately is way out of date. I think it is at least 2 years old and all the contact information is obsolete and the show dates long past. Jensen Rufe made the documentary "In Search of the Famous Hoosier Breaded Pork Tenderloin Sandwich" back around 1998. It is a 16 minute documentary but Jensen Rufe does have a short excerpt posted on his website an JensenRufe.com. Here is the direct shortcut to the Quicktime movie. In Search of the Famous Hoosier Breaded Pork Tenderloin Sandwich This short version captures the essence of the full documentary. Enjoy.

Thank you Chef. I have done enough experimenting now to know the buttermilk does make a difference. The pork tenderloin is indeed tender as its name implies but the buttermilk marinade makes it a melt in your mouth experience. Few restaurants achieve this. Nick's Kitchen in Huntington, IN does and that is where I picked up that technique. I have had a few chewy over fried tenderloins. The Gnaw Bone tenderloin is "broasted". It is good but is not the best I have had. We must be about the same age. I attempted to explain how this "obsession" came about in the blog portion of my web site in "What Can You Say?". It really is just kind of a fun hobby to experience the online interaction. It also gets me out and about in the road food adventure in always being on the lookout wherever I travel rather than falling back on the tried, true and safe. No way would I have ventured to the tiny town of St. Olaf, Iowa nestled in a valley way off even state highways if it were not for this. And absolutely no way would I sought out and gone to the Heights Camphouse BBQ in Houston were it not for this and turn in a reimbursable invoice of $8.85 for dinner at my company. What is really interesting about the breaded pork tenderloin sandwich is how many restaurants, mostly small independent places, are obsessed themselves about trying to make the best one. It is going on in both Indiana and Iowa that way right now. I think more so than 10, 20, 30 or 40 years ago.

Ah! You mean these... http://www.porktenderloinsandwich.com Let the pictures explain.

This weeks purchase was Samuel Adams Winter Lager.

I watched the show and I got very, very hungry.

Pork tenderloin of course.

Today I am drinking Schell's Octoberfest http://www.schellsbrewery.com/ourbeers_october.php in celebration of the Minnesota Twins winning the American League Central Division championship.

Ah! Another sandwich thread. There are two sandwiches I regularly order--the deep fried breaded pork tenderloin sandwich and the fried Walleye sandwich on a hoagie. The breaded pork tenderloin sandwich that I made (and a better view of my avatar)... The fried Minnesota Walleye sandwich from the Pine Street Grille in Chaska, MN... I would not turn down a good pulled pork BBQ sandwich either.

Last year was a great fall on the North Shore. The leaves hung on the trees a lot longer than usual. So long that it was still nice on October 22 a full week or two after most fall leaf chasers hung it up. The weather was also extraodinary that weekend. This year seems more normal. We were up at St. Croix State Park last weekend spending one day walking in the rain and then Sunday an absolutely beautiful day for a hike to the confluence of the Kettle River and the St. Croix River. What a wonder! St. Croix State Park was practically bug free. Never thought that would happen.