Because our grilled citrus marinated pork tenderloin had turned out so well last week, we figured if we used the same technique on our Spicy Thai Pork Tenderloin Salad it would turn out equally well. But it did not. The pork was dry and tasteless. We can only figure that a longer marinating time in acidic citrus made the difference. John pounded out the pieces and left them to marinate in the salty fish sauce liquid for a few hours. Then he grilled the pork pieces quickly on the grill but the result was not nearly as good.

The accompanying salad was pretty tasty with the reserved marinade as a dressing. I used a basic salad mix with some cabbage, red bell pepper, red onion, and cucumber. Right before I served it a tossed in some fresh basil, cilantro, and mint.

In case you would like to try the original recipe, here is a link – https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1017575-spicy-thai-pork-tenderloin-salad?smid=ck-recipe-iOS-share Since it is a NYTimes cooking site recipe it is unfortunately behind a paywall. We made ours a little differently and certainly did not use as much oil or 5 tablespoons of brown sugar! I know that John only used a teaspoon of the sugar. Maybe some of our changes resulted in a less than spectacular dish (but I don’t think so.)

I still have two pork tenderloins left and am in a quandary as to what to do with them.