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Pork au Poivre with Marqués de Riscal Rioja

Last night I made Pork au Poivre along with roasted red potatoes and sautéed cauliflower. I am usually not that big a fan of au poivre dishes, but I decided to try this recipe because it was highly rated by all the users who had tried it on CookingLight.com. We both thought it was very good. The method of cooking the pork loin -- butterflying it, searing it in a sauté pan, and then putting the whole pan in the oven for about 10 minutes -- worked really well, and the simple sauce of red wine, stock, mustard and tomato tasted great (even though I don't like mustard). Based on comments on the web site, I doubled the amount of sauce and let it boil longer to thicken up.

With dinner we had Marqués de Riscal 1999 Reserva Rioja which was given to me by a co-worker from the UK office. (Yes, two bottles in two nights from two co-workers. Apparently people think giving the IT guy wine might make him less surly. Chocolate and cookies also work.) This was a great wine that was a good pairing with the peppery flavor, even though it was very different (maybe more complex?) than the Shiraz last night, which also went well with the pepper steak.