Nicaraguan Stuffed Pork

Lomo relleno is a classic Christmas and New Year's dish in Nicaragua. I'll admit, I was scared when I saw Jenny putting what looked like a lot of weird stuff in the pan together -- and you will be too when you see the ingredients list - but I'm telling you, it works. Lomo relleno gets the award for being the most unpredictably delicious party feast ever encountered. Click at right for the story, how-to photos, and the recipe. Thank you to my resident Nicaraguan grandmother, Jenny Sanchez, for teaching me.

And thank you Matt Boutet, who took a break from fly fishing magazine photography to bring you these amazing photos from Jenny's kitchen. I'm so grateful.

copyright Lindsay Sterling 2011

photo: Matt Boutet

The Story

Stuffed Loins for Christmas?

By Lindsay Sterling

Before my Nicaraguan cooking lesson with Jenny Sanchez, I wanted to quit Christmas. I didn’t know how I was going to do it (I have two kids, 5 and 8), but I was hell-bent. Things have just gotten too insane. Jenny Sanchez was happy to see me. She lives alone in a single floor condo. Her rheumatoid arthritis keeps her up all night. She says it’s like animals attacking her from the inside. Mornings are the best time to cook. She was going to teach me a Christmas dish called lomo relleno.

“What does lomo relleno mean?” I asked.

“Stuffed lion,” she said as if it were stuffed turkey.

“LION? You mean like ROAR?” I did more of a bear impression but she got what I meant.

“No, no, no.” Then she spelled it out: “L-O-I-N.”

Stuffed loin? Like the biblical v-word? “Be fruitful and multiply….and kings shall come out of thy loins.” Are we about to make a food-based nativity scene featuring a close up of the birth process? After Jenny picked out a long, thick pork sirloin from the meat case, and then in her kitchen cut it open, rubbed it all over with honey and honey mustard, stuffed it with filling, and sewed it shut with wooden skewers, I got it. “Ohhhh, you mean stuffed pork sirloin!”

This is not just any stuffed pork sirloin. It is the craziest set of ingredients I’ve ever seen put together. My eyebrows raised a notch every time Jenny put a new item in the sauté pan: sliced blanched cabbage, ketchup, raisins, green olives, julienned carrots and red pepper, cocktail onions, capers, prunes, and garbanzo beans? “That’s the relleno,” she said. Then she put pineapple rings on top of the stuffed pork loin in the pattern of a snowman, and dotted down the middle with prunes like they were coal buttons. Was this my darkest dream come true? A Grinchy pork roast stand-in to get all the gagging of the season out in one finale of a meal?

“Venga,” she called me. She couldn’t walk very well and needed me to take over making more of the relleno. “Now add the raisins, and the cocktail onions… And this ketchup is ‘no-salt’! Very important. This is a sweet dish.”

“Is there Santa in Nicaragua?” I asked, stirring the relleno.

“No,” she said, “Over there no Santa Claus.”

“Really?” I said, because it went against everything I’d ever been taught. And also because I was hopeful – Nicaragua might be where we go to escape American Christmas. And then Jenny says, with the driest of sarcasm: “Did Mary give birth to Santa?” Did Mary give birth to Santa. By golly, it does indeed appear that she did! I think what’s going on is that in the U.S. we have two holidays that happen to fall on the same day: Christmas and Capital-mas. And all the people who practice Capital-mas feel guilty about how gluttonous and out of control it is, so they call it Christmas and put up nativity scenes as a moral shields.

I’m as astonished as you are to hear myself say that lomo relleno is incredibly delicious! You have to try it. It’s mildly sweet as great pork dishes tend to be, studded with soft strong things that are sweet, sour, and salty. If I learned anything in Jenny’s kitchen, it’s that no matter how messed up something appears, it can still turn out to be phenomenal. I’m calling my in-laws. Christmas is on, and I’m cooking.

copyright Lindsay Sterling 2011

The Recipe

A Nicaraguan Christmas Dish

Lomo Relleno, Stuffed pork loin

As Jenny Sanchez, from Leon, Nicaragua, taught Lindsay Sterling in Freeport, Maine, December 2011

Serves 12

Active time: 1-2 hours

Total Time: 3-4 hours

1 cup rice

1 boneless pork sirloin (log shaped, about 5 pounds)

1/4 + 1/2 cup honey

1/4 cup + 2 tsp honey mustard

1 whole fresh pineapple

1 cup wine (optional)

2 Tbsp + 2 Tbsp capers

1 cup pitted green olives with pimentos

1 small jar cocktail onions (She said look for the smaller Cambray onions in the Latin market)

1 cup prunes

1 + 3 green onions

2 small handfuls green beans

2 large russet potatoes

1 cabbage

1 red pepper

2 huge carrots

1/2 + 1/2 cup garbanzos

1/4 cup raisins

1/2 cup salt-free Ketchup

about 1/2 cup vegetable oil

1. Gather all ingredients on the counter now so you have everything on hand. Saute rice in about a Tbsp vegetable oil a small pot until the rice grains start turning opaque but not brown. Add 1 cup of water (not 2 cups!) and 1/2 tsp salt, cover and simmer for twenty minutes without stirring or touching.

2. Trim the pork sirloin of excess fat and silver skin. Cut an incision lengthwise all the way down the middle 1/2 inch deep, and then turn the knife blade slightly outward and start cutting down as if you are trying to cut out a smaller cylinder 1/2 inch inside the larger one. You'll get a flap of the sirloin, 1/2 inch thick starting to form. Open it from the loin like a trench coat. Do this to the other side so you finally have one flat rectangle of meat, 1/2 inch thick.

3. Jenny's honey mustard and honey were in squirt bottles, so I don't have exact measurements for this, but just do what she did: squirt zig zags of honey mustard all over the meat, then zig zags of straight honey. Rub these two in so the meat is evenly covered on both sides, and let the meat marinate while you prep the other stuff.

4. Put an 8 qt soup pot 2/3 full of water on to boil. Cut your cabbage in half and put the two halves in there. Peel your carrots and add to the water. Trim the beans and add half the beans to the water. Remove the beans when they're bright green and a little tender, and the carrots when they're slightly softened. Both the beans and carrots should still have a backbone so to speak when you take them out. Remove the cabbage when it starts smelling like cooked cabbage. All you're trying to do is take that raw crunch away throughout. All these veggies you will stir fry so you don't want any of them to be wimpy or mushy.

4. Preheat oven to 350. Cut the green onions and raw green beans crosswise into mini green hockey pucks. Put these in a small mixing bowl with 1/4 cup of the cooked rice, 1/4 cup cocktail onions, 1/2 cup prunes, 2 Tbsp garbanzos, 1 Tbsp capers. Toss together. It's the stuffing or filling for the pork. Pour onto the center of the meat in a smaller rectangular shape keeping the edges clear. Get your butcher's twine or wooden bbq skewers out. Roll the long side of the pork over the filling and over again so you have a stuffed (or rolled) pork loin! Tie shut with twine or pin closed with wooden skewers.

5. Trim the brown skin off the pineapple and cut the fruit crosswise into 1/4-inch-thick circle shapes. Cut the centers out of the circles with an apple corer or curved tip of a grapefruit knife. You can also cut each piece in half and use a melon baller to clip out the hard interior core from each piece.

6. In a rectangular casserole pan that will fit the length of the loin, place three pineapple circles down the middle like a pineapple snowman. Put the pork loin on top of that, and then put three more pineapple circles on top of the loin - another pineapple snowman. Put three dried plums (aka prunes!) in the centers of the pineapple rings where the cores were. It's cool how the prunes fit right in there! Peel the potatoes and slice into 1/4" rounds. Place the potatoes around the edge of the casserole dish. They'll bake and suck up all the delicious juices. Bake until you can stick a meat thermometer into the center and you get a 160 reading, about an hour and a half depending on the size of your roast.

7. Cut the cabbage into thin wedges by cutting down from the interior center of each half out to the edges. Cut the red pepper into really thin strips (julienne), the green onion and cooked green beans into mini green hockey pucks, and the carrots into 3 inch long thin strips (julienne). Get a large rectangular or oval serving dish ready (the one you'll serve the whole shebang in). Put the rice in the center of the serving platter.

8. In the largest saute pan you have, saute all these ingredients you just cut up in batches, squirting about 1 Tbsp of salt-free ketchup into each large handful of ingredients and mixing together with a wooden spoon. This sounds crazy, but it tastes great, so do it! The sauteed ketchup gives these veggies a golden glow and ups the general sweetness of the dish (kind of like Pad Thai and cole slaw are a little sweet, you know?). Also use a Tbsp or two of vegetable oil in each batch to keep your ingredients loose in the pan. Jenny sauteed her red pepper and green onion first. You want to saute all these ingredients so they are slightly soft and look cooked, but not droopy, mushy or soggy, like a good stir fry. As each batch is done, add it to the rice on the serving platter. Then she did some batches of cabbage and green beans, then the remaining cabbage and the cocktail onions, prunes, olives, and garbanzos.

9. This next step is crazy, but just trust me. Your basically dressing the vegetables in honey and honey mustard. Squirt honey into a large serving spoon over the cabbage-rice melange, and squirt a tsp honey mustard onto the honey and then drizzle both over all the rice mixture. Now do that again. I'm guessing that's a total of 1/2 cup honey and 2 tsp honey mustard. Dust the top with salt. Use your hands to mix the honey and mustard evenly into the melange. And this, folks is the relleno.

10. When the pork is fully cooked, remove the skewers or twine, and place the lomo (the loin) on top of the relleno. Add the pineapple that was on the bottom of the baking dish to the pineapple on top of the pork. Transfer the potatoes from the baking dish to the outside edge of the relleno. Pour the pork juices in the bottom of the casserole into the relleno (rice mixture). After you and your guests are done ooing and ahhing at how beautiful and delicious your Christmas or New Years feast looks, get a meat slicer (or whatever long knife you have) and spatula ready. Slice across the pork roast and catch each slice on a spatula (so the filling doesn't tumble out), and serve on individual plates with a scoop of relleno and a potato slice or two.

Copyright Lindsay Sterling 2011

See How To Do It

Here's the most interesting combination of ingredients for a meal I've ever seen.

(Pineapple, capers, cocktail onions, green olives, raisins, potatoes, honey, garbanzos...?)

First you cook a cup of rice in 1 1/2 Tbsp vegetable oil, stirring every so often, until some of the grains start turning opaque, but not brown. Add just a cup of water, 1/2 teaspoon of salt and simmer covered without lifting lid for 20 min.

Trim the fat off your boneless pork sirloin. Cut lengthwise down the center and carve down about an inch in and around the side as if drawing a smaller cylinder an inch inside the larger cylider that is the sirloin. Do the same to the other side. Not sure if this metaphor is going to fly, but you are opening this sirloin up like a dress jacket down the middle so that the piece of meat that finally lays open is a rectangular shape and consistent thickness.

Make generous zigzags of both honey and honey mustard, and massage them all over the meat with your hands. Then (obvioulsy!) wash your hands. Let the meat marinate while you make the filling. The filling Jenny taught me was 1/4 of the cooked rice you started earlier, small handful green beans, 2 Tbsp capers, 2 Tbsp garbanzos, 6 prunes (now often called dried plums), 4 cocktail onions, and 1 green onion, cut into rounds like the green beans. Here's a picture of Jenny's filling ingredients:

Put the filling down the middle of the sirloin.

Then sew it up. I'm going to use butcher's twine next time, but Jenny insisted on using wooden skewers. The skewers make it look like a giant caterpillar, though, which is cool.

Then decorate the top with cored slices of pineapple and a dried plum (a.k.a. prune) in the center of each. Does this not look like a close up of a catarpillar? Can't wait to do this with the kids! Put three more pineapple rounds in a row down the center of your rectangular roasting pan, and place the pork catarpillar on top of them. Then put peeled potato rounds along the outside so they roast with the meat. Voila!

Put the pork-pillar in the oven, and now prepare the ingredients for the relleno, a whole bed of stir fried goodies on which the pork sits when it's done. Here's what the relleno looks like when it's done.

To make it, first you slice your cabbage in half and boil both halves briefly until the raw green color changes to cooked color throughout. But you don't want the cabbage to get "cooked" fully or soggy. "Just remember, you have to behave," she told me, "Not to overcook." Peel two of the biggest carrots you can find and put in the cabbage water. Take out when they're barely cooked (no longer crunchy, but not fall-apart soft either.) Cook a large handful green beans briefly in the water, too, until not quite cooked (still a touch of crunch is okay) and remove. Cut the carrots into matchsticks, and slice the cabbage into narrow wedges.

She shows me how to cut the carrots into equal sized segments before I cut them into fine pieces. And then how to slice thin wedges of cabbage from the heart to the edges to get the right shape.

Then cut the green beans into rounds.

Cut 1 red pepper into slivers, and 3 green onion into rounds.

Put the rest of the rice you cooked in the bottom of the rectangular casserole dish or platter in which you will serve the feast. Then stir fry the the veggies (cabbage, carrots, peppers, green onions) in batches and add to the rice. Use just enough vegetable oil when frying to loosen things up in the pan and just enough salt-free Ketchup (about 1 Tbsp per large handful of veg) to give the ingredients a slight golden color. You want everything to be cooked, to lose their cold, raw crunch, but not to be soggy.

She gives all the sauteed items a slight golden color and ups the general overall sweetness by adding doses of salt-free Ketchup while stir frying.

While you've got the salt-free Ketchup out, you can baste the meat/pineapples and potatoes in the oven with it as well for good color and depth of flavor. Keep sauteeing those relleno ingredients. Don't stop. Trust me, they're good all together ...1/2 cup prunes, 1/4 cup green olives, 1/4 cup drained garbanzos, 1 Tbsp capers, 1/2 cup cocktail onions.)

Mix all the sauteed stuff in serving dish together, and add more honey than feels comfortable. 1/2 cup think. Add 2 tsp of honey mustard. Use your hands to mix it all in.

When you stick a meat thermometer in the lomo and it's 160 degrees in the middle, take the pork out. Transfer it on top of the relleno and put the potatoes around the edges. Put the three pieces of pineapple, now soaking in delicious juices, on the top of the other pineapple pieces on the pork. Pour meat juices on the relleno.

Slice off portions for each person, trying to keep the stuffing from falling out with a spatula. Here's what individual plates look like.