Anacondas on sale

[MikeInCypress]

This week at HEB in Houston Whole Pork Loins for $1.29 a pound.

MikeInCypress

[bower]

I can't believe my grocery store is now 8 weeks on strike. Have not been impressed with meat price or quality in the chain I'm now forced to shop at. My freezer is almost empty of meat now. No anaconda, not even a garter snake.

[GoDawgs]

This week at HEB in Houston Whole Pork Loins for $1.29 a pound.

MikeInCypress

Is that boneless or bone-in? The grocery in town has whole pork loins this week for .99/lb but the ad didn't say boneless so I'm assuming they're bone-in. Either way it's too bad my freezer has no room in it right now!

[worth1]

If it was bone in it would be a side of pork you cut pork chops from.
Not likely they would sell that.
The pork loin/anaconda is the same thing as a Chateaubriand with beef, the tender side of a porterhouse steak.
Or the same with a pork chop.
Back strap on a deer.
Not something to be over cooked with any animal.
The tenderloin is found on the other side of the rib cage from the loin right by the back bone.

[GoDawgs]

They do sell bone in whole pork loins here. They are the whole loin cut into chops in a big package but they advertise them as whole pork loins. If it's a whole boneless pork loin they indicate boneless in the ad.

[worth1]

Strange.

[bower]

Okay, I need some suggestions for all the possible ways you like to cook this cut of meat. Or should I say, cut and cook.
At the grocery store yesterday there was a lineup of 20 people waiting to rummage through the sale beef. I had no time for that and walked past it, and there was lying the bin full of anacondas so large and lovely, I swear I got the smallest one at $16 but it's about a yard of meat and I only have a toaster oven!! (whimper, whine!) And I don't have room in the freezer for this big boy as it is.
So it has been lying in the cold (near freezing) porch while I did my baking, but I have to face the music.
In the past I've just cut it into roasts and steaks. Don't need steaks I already have some.
Any chance of using this for stews, kebabs, ??? other?

[worth1]

Kabobs yes.
Stews tricky.
Consider the big thing the same as the loin of the T bone.
Does not take well to over cooking.
I personally won't let it get past 145F.
So even if you put it in a stew it can over cook and be dry and tasteless.
I like mine pink inside.
Today's pork is not the pork of the past you had to over cook to kill the parasites.

[bower]

I did a bit of browsing on that, and one tip that seemed important is that this cut of meat will lose its tenderness if cooked in liquid. They are best kept dry not steamy. That makes perfect sense for your comment on tricky stew. Like the idea of kebabs!
In the end I modified slightly a recipe from epicurious - made a paste of garlic rosemary cumin seed salt pepper olive oil and scored the fat side before rubbing this all over. The recipe called for cooking upsidedown first for 30 minutes at 400 F, then flip it to fat side up for the remaining cook time. Worked really well. It was also great served cold today and we pretty much polished it off. Two more thirds of the snake are now frozen, but that makes it easier to cut, so we'll see what to make when the day comes.

[worth1]

If you do put it in water treat it like fish or chicken breast.
No really conducive to a good stew though.
Unless you have another more practical meat to put in it first for flavor.
Pork loin is the last thing I would ever consider getting from a BBQ place.
Over cooked 100% of the time.
If you are into it you might consider curing some and eating raw.
Not complicated but you have to follow the rules.