Olive brine marinated pork tenderloin with cuscus オリーブブライン漬け豚ヒレ

This is continuation of my search for another way to cook pork tenderloins. A few days ago I used the trimmings from two pork tenderloins, I prepared to make "Pork, potato, and green bean stir fry". The next day, I made "Seared Pork tenderloin with smoked paprika and oregano 焼き豚フィレ肉、薫製パプリカ、オレガノ味" from one of the tenderloins. That left one last tenderloin. I came across this recipe in "Food and Wine" magazine. It uses the brine from a jar of olives (I suppose it is made of water, vinegar and salt with added olive flavor from the marinated olives) as a marinade for pork tenderloin. We were inspired by this recipe so we made this dish and served it with couscous. The original recipe called for white beans as the side but we happened to have a box of couscous which recently passed its "best used by" date. (Actually that date was one year ago but in our household that is "recent"). The brining did make the pork more succulent but did not add much flavor despite the addition of ground sage and lemon zest to the brine.

We added all the juice, olives and roasted garlic from the roasted pork to the couscous which made it very flavorful and moist. (We tend to avoid dry flakey couscous which we found from experience can easily become uncomfortably air borne if you happen to inhale slightly at the wrong time while eating it). Although the color could have been a bit better, we will call this dish a sucess.

Since we do not believe in "searing" the surface of the meat before baking, I skipped the searing step.

Ingredients:
One trimmed and prepared pork tenderloin
Several green olives, pitted and smashed
Several cloves of garlic, skin on
1 tbs olive oil

For marinade:
1/4 cup of brine from a jar of olives (we had sweet red pepper stuffed green olives which I use when I have a martini).
1 tbs extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 tsp ground sage
Lemon zest from one lemon using a micrograter.
1/2 tsp Kosher salt

Salt and pepper for seasning.

Directions:
Place the marinade and the tenderloin in a Ziploc bag. Removed the air, close the bag and marinate for 3 hours in the refrigerator.
Preheat oven (I used our toaster oven in convection mode) to 375F.
Remove the pork from the marinade, blot with a paper towel, coat with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Coat the garlic cloves with olive oil.
Place the pork, olives, and garlic on a baking sheet and bake for 30 minutes or until the temperature in the thickest part of the pork registers 145F.
Let it rest for 5-10 minutes on the cutting board.

Meanwhile, we prepared a box of couscous according to the directions (we used chicken broth and pats of butter). When done, we fluffed up the couscous using a fork, added the roasted garlic by squeezing out the soft center of the clove leaving the skin behind. Then we added the olives and whatever juice from the meat that accumulated while it was resting.

Since we are not really into brining meats, this is a quick and easy way to do it. As far as we could tell the main impact of the brining was on the texture of the meat rather than its flavor. The meat was moist and nice. This is a new for us but we are not sure we will do this again.