- 250g pork belly strips
- 2 sweet potatoes
- ½ pineapple
- 2 tomatoes
- A thumb of ginger
- 1 garlic clove
- 2 tsp smoked paprika
- 1 tbsp Demerara sugar
- 2 tbsp cider vinegar
- 1 red onion
- ½ cucumber
- 1 chilli
- A handful of mint, leaves only
- 1 orange
- 1½ tbsp olive oil
- Sea salt
- Freshly ground pepper
- 200ml water
- 1.
Heat your oven to 220°C/Fan 200°C/Gas 8. Pat the pork belly strips dry with kitchen paper. Line a roasting tin with foil and pop the pork belly strips in it. Drizzle over ½ tbsp oil and season generously with salt and pepper. Rub into the pork. Roast in the oven for 20 mins.
- 2.
While the pork belly roasts, chop each sweet potato into 6-8 wedges. Tumble onto a baking tray and toss with 1 tbsp olive oil. Season. Slide into the oven on a middle shelf and roast for 40 mins till tender and lightly charred on the edges. Flip the wedges over halfway through.
- 3.
While the pork and potatoes cook, prepare the barbecue sauce. Slice the pineapple in half lengthways and slice the skin off 1 half. Halve the peeled pineapple chunk again. Finely chop 1 half and place it in a bowl. Finely chop 1 tomato and add to the bowl. Peel and grate in the ginger and garlic. Add 2 tsp smoked paprika, 1 tbsp Demerara sugar, 2 tbsp vinegar and 200ml water. Set to one side.
- 4.
The pork should have cooked for 20 mins by now. Remove from the oven and carefully pour away the fat. Pour over the barbecue sauce ingredients and slide back into the oven. Roast for another 20 mins. You can flip the potato wedges over too.
- 5.
Meanwhile, make the salsa. Slice any woody core from the remaining pineapple quarter and discard it. Finely chop the pineapple. Roughly chop the remaining tomato. Peel and finely chop the onion. Halve the cucumber. Take 1 half and scoop out the seeds with a teaspoon. Discard them. Chop the cucumber half into small chunks.
- 6.
Finely chop the chilli, flicking out the seeds for less heat. Finely shred the mint leaves. Add everything to a bowl. Zest and juice in the orange. Add a good pinch of salt and a crack of pepper. Mix everything together. This is your salsa.
- 7.
Pile the sweet potato wedges onto a couple of warmed plates. Add the pork belly strips, spooning over the sauce. Serve with the pineapple salsa.
- Tip
Pineapple for pud?
Use up your remaining pineapple half in this quick pudding. Slice the skin off the leftover pineapple half. Thinly slice it. Heat a griddle or frying pan till smoking hot. Lay the slices in the pan and cook for a couple of mins on each side till charred. Bash a handful of mint leaves with a couple of teaspoons of sugar in a pestle and mortar. Sprinkle over the hot pineapple and serve with ice cream or yogurt. - Tip
Do the salsa
Leftover pineapple salsa? It will keep for a couple of days in your fridge, covered in a bowl. Seve it on the side of a ploughman's salad for a tropical twist on that classic.
