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Pork fillet with mustard crust

Giorgio Locatelli from Market Kitchen
A sweet-savoury topping with mustard fruits and soupy borlotti beans combine to make an Italian sensation from Giorgio Locatelli

Pork fillet with mustard crust

Method

1. For the borlotti beans: put the beans with the whole garlic cloves, celery, sage, bayleaf and 2 tablespoons of the olive oil in a pan and cover with plenty of cold water (about double the volume of the beans).

2. Put a lid on the pan and bring to the boil. Remove the lid, skim the foam from the top and turn down the heat to a gentle simmer. Cook for about 45 minutes to 1 hour, until the beans are soft to the bite. At this point, take the pan off the heat, add salt to taste then leave the beans to cool in their cooking liquid.

3. For the crust: put the mustard fruits into a food processor and process until chopped. Add the breadcrumbs, followed by the butter. Everything should come together in a paste. Chill in the freezer for about 10-15 minutes.

4. Meanwhile, blanch the broccoli in boiling salted water for about a minute. Drain and squeeze to remove the excess water.

5. Take the mustard fruit mixture from the freezer. Lay a sheet of parchment paper on your work surface. Spoon over the mixture and put another sheet of parchment paper on top. Roll over it with a rolling pin until the mixture has flattened out into a sheet of paste just a few millimetres thick. Put back into the freezer.

6. Preheat the oven to 240C/ gas 9.

7. Cut each pork fillet in half widthways, and wrap each one with strips of pancetta. Hold the pancetta in place with a piece of string.

8. Heat a large ovenproof frying pan until medium hot. Pour in in the sunflower or vegetable oil, season the pork and add to the pan. Fry until golden on both sides (a couple of minutes on each), making sure you keep the heat up inside the pan otherwise the meat will 'boil' rather than brown. You may need to cook the pork in two batches. If so, keep the first batch on the side while you fry the rest.

9. Transfer the fillets to the oven. Cook for about 3 minutes, take out and leave to rest.

10. Meanwhile take the crust from the freezer and, working very fast (as it will soften up almost straight away), cut out 8 pieces, roughly the same size and shape as each piece of pork. Return it to the freezer for a few minutes to harden again.

11. Lift each sheet of crust with a fish slice and lay on top of each piece of pork. Return to the oven for 4-5 minutes.

12. Take the pork out of the oven and put under a preheated grill (if you have a combined oven/grill, turn on your grill to high and, as soon as it is hot, put the pork underneath). Grill until the crust becomes light golden, taking care not to let it burn.

13. Put 3 tbsp of the olive oil into a frying pan, add the chopped garlic and chilli and fry for a few minutes until the garlic starts to colour - don't let it burn or it will taste bitter. Add the broccoli and season. Toss around for a couple of minutes and turn the heat down.

14. Meanwhile, lift the beans from their cooking water and put in a separate pan. Add a ladle or two of the cooking water and the tomato passata (the beans should be quite soupy). Warm through and season with salt and a generous grind of pepper.

15. Stir in the chopped parsley and spoon the beans on to warmed plates. Drizzle with the rest of the olive oil and arrange the broccoli around the plate. Take the pork from under the grill and sit on top of the beans.

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Serves: 4

Prep: 30 min
Cook: 1 hr 25 min

Ingredients
250g fresh borlotti beans, or 160g dried soaked in cold water for 24 hours
3 garlic cloves
1 celery stalk
1 small bunch Sage
1 bay leaf
90ml extra virgin olive oil
50g Mostarda di frutta
25g breadcrumbs
25g Butter, softened
1 head Broccoli, cut into florets
4 pork fillets
8 thin slices Pancetta
2 tbsp sunflower or vegetable oil
1 garlic clove, chopped
1 green chilli, deseeded and chopped
2 tbsp tomato passata (sieved tomatoes)
1 handful Parsley, chopped