Local Ingredients: Roasted Baby Carrots and Red Currant Wine Sauce

On Friday, we received our farmers market delivery from Go Greenologist.  Although we ordered some familiar produce, Bret and I are continuing to challenge ourselves by ordering at least one item a week that we have never cooked with before.  This week, our challenge item was a pint of red currants from Silverbrook Farms. 

In addition to the gorgeous red currants, we also had a bunch of beautiful baby carrots from Atlas Farm.

Since we had a jam-packed weekend, I didn't get a chance to work with these ingredients until last night.  We decided to use pork cutlets as our protein and make a red currant sauce with a side of roasted carrots.

To start, Bret removed the carrot fronds and washed the carrots.  We tried the carrot raw and it tasted so sweet and fresh.  You can really taste the difference when you eat fresh local ingredients.  Since the carrots tasted so great on its own, we didn't want to do too much to them to let the carrots' natural flavor shine.  Bret cut the carrots at a bias and I tossed it with some olive oil, herbs de Provence and fresh cracked black pepper.

When the oven was ready, we put the carrots on the top rack of the oven at 400 degrees.

While Bret had been washing and slicing the carrots, I rinsed the red currants and removed all of the currants from the vine.  I began by warming up a sauce pan with the red currants on medium heat.  For a liquid, I added about a cup of a delicious red wine - Casa Nuestra's 2007 Tinta St. Helena - that Bret's sister had given us as a gift from her favorite winery in Napa.

Since the red currants were tart, I added a few heaping spoonfuls of light brown sugar to sweeten the sauce up. 

I let the red currant wine sauce cook on medium high until the alcohol cooked down and the sauce began to thicken up.  While the red currant wine was cooking, we got to work on the pork cutlets.  Bret pat the cutlets dry and gave them a simple seasoning of fresh cracked salt and black pepper.  On a skillet, Bret browned both sides of the pork.

When the pork sufficiently seared, I moved the carrots to the bottom rack of the oven and placed the pork cutlets on the top rack for about ten minutes.  During this time, Bret and I had a glass of wine to unwind while everything was in the oven.

The end result was a very simple but delicious meal.  Since the pork cutlet was so big, Bret and I just split one between the two of us. 

The red currant wine sauce was thick and you could taste the sharp tartness of the red currants balanced by the slight sweetness of the brown sugar.  The roasted carrots had a natural sweetness and roasting it with the herbs helped keep the dish from becoming too sweet.  If I made this again, I'd add some rosemary to the red currant wine sauce but unfortunately I couldn't find any dried rosemary in my spice collection.

What have you made recently with local ingredients? 

I'd also like to announce the winner of my Olivia's Organics giveaway.  Using Random Integer, my winner is Christina Feeney, who would pair Olivia's Organics Baby Arugula salad with pears and Gorgonzola cheese.  Congratulations Christina!  Please email me by Wednesday 11:59 PM (EST) with your mailing address!

Thanks to everyone who participated and thanks to Olivia's Organics for offering this great giveaway to my readers!