There is nothing that a great plate of pork cannot fix!! I love love love the taste and flavor of pork and it is one of my top three favorite meats. While it is one of the meats I really love, for some reason I do not consume it as often as I would prefer. I would love to change that this year and have more pork. I have done splendid pork recipes in the past; such as my red wine braised pork ribs and mango habanero sauce basted pork choma and today I would love us to get into this beauty that is my thyme & pineapple marinated pork.
PREP TIME: 24hr COOK TIME: 20 min SERVES: 2
Ingredients
For marinate:
750 g of Pork Shoulder, cubed
¼ cup of sweet pineapple
1 sprig of rosemary
2 sprigs of thyme
½ thumb-size chunk of ginger
¼ teaspoon of cumin
½ teaspoon of cinnamon
1 teaspoon of coriander spice
To cook:
½ cup of dania stems
½ cup of chopped red onion
1 heaped tablespoon of minced ginger
4 cloves of garlic, minced
½ teaspoon of chilli
4 tablespoons of hoisin sauce
4 tablespoons of honey
1 tablespoon of soy sauce
Method
For this recipe, I decided to go with Pork Shoulder. Any other cut you personally prefer is fine, but I like pork shoulder because of the marbling. The fat renders well and you always get extra tasty and super tender pork as a result.
Chop your pork and place it in a bowl. The first step as always is the marination. Place the marination ingredients in a container and blend.
The star of the marinade is the pineapple. Make sure your pineapple is super duper sweet so that the sweet notes shine in the marinate. If it is sour, all other flavors shall be thrown off. In place of pineapple, you can use mango, nectarines, peaches or plums.
Once pureed, pour into the pork, mix and cover. Marinate overnight.
You can choose to marinate for 6 hours if you are in a rush, but remember the longer you marinate, the deeper and more intense the flavors get. If you marinated overnight, ensure the meat comes to room temp before the cooking. It is important because cold meat toughens up when cooked, so bringing it to room temp is paramount.
To cook, sautee the dania stems, garlic, ginger and red onion until softened and fragrant. A great herby base is very important to build flavor upon so starting with the herbs is a major key!
Add in the hoisin sauce, soy sauce, chili and honey. These are the ingredients that will form the sauce of the recipe. Hoisin Sauce is a sauce that is popular in chinese cuisine, used for basting and grilling. I bought mine from carrefour, where a jar cost 120 bob. Very easy to get and a super versatile ingredient to have.
Let this sautee until thick, as shown above and it should have this exact consistency. You can also see these exact consistency from the video from 5.53-5.55
Once thick, then add in the marinated pork. Stir in, and allow to cook on medium high heat for about 20 minutes. You can watch the process of this step from the video at 7.12 -7.30.
Once done, garnish and serve with your favorite veggie and starch. On this day, I went with some kachumbari and some fries!
How inviting is this plateful?!!
I love how the perfect sweet notes of the marination were really prominent! I love how the sweetness of the pineapple complimented the flavor of the pork. I love how the sweetness of the honey and the hoisin sauce contrasted with the heat of the chili. I enjoyed how the herbiness of the thyme and rosemary perfectly popped against the boldness of the spices we used.
This is perfect!
The pork rendered so perfectly and it was melt-in-your-mouth good!
I cannot wait to see you guys try this out! For sure you are going to love it! Please watch the complimentary video to this blog post; I know you will enjoy it! And if you are yet to, please subscribe, i would love to have you!
-K
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Hey there! My name is Kaluhi and I love food! Through my blog, I am happy to share with you my self-taught recipes, steeped in nostalgia and the happiest of memories. I hope each recipe you try out is as addictive as the previous one and is shared on a table full of love and hearty laughs!
Hi Kaluhi, thank you for the amazing work you do and for always coming through for us food lovers. I’ve never come across the hoisin sauce. Is it something that’s made from scratch in the house, or available in the stores?
Carrefour at sh.120
Really looking forward to trying this 😋😋…
Enjoy!
Great recipe and really a nice one. Will surely try this
You will love it so much!
Hey, what part of beef cut can you substitute the pork with?
DO NOT I repeat DO NOT use beef for this pork recipe. DO NOT USE BEEF for this pork recipe. You MUST use pork for this!!!!!!!!!! If you are keen on cooking your beef, check out my slow cooked beef stew recipe but for gods sake do not force beef in a recipe that does not require it!
I don’t think I’ve ever used thyme with pork and the addition of the hoisin really added sweet umami flavor. This pineapple marinated pork was so perfect!
The hoisin does make it super special!!! Glad you loved it!
There was a pork shoulder hanging out in my freezer for a while that I didn’t know what to do with so I decided to try this recipe. Now I’m going to buy another one just so I can make it again. The flavors were out of this world. SO GOOD!
This recipe really came in time and I am beyond happy that you enjoyed it!
After marinating the meat overnight, I took it to my neighbors home to be placed on the grill. They loved it so much there was a “fight” over the leftovers!
I support this ”fight”lol! That way you know the food really slapped!
This came out sooo juicy and delicious. The marinade was perfectly balanced and the pork was hella flavorful. Thank you so much for this recipe. xx
Awesome!! Cheers!
I made this pork for dinner last night and it was SO juicy and tender. And we all loved the flavor so I’ll be trying to marinade on some other proteins too. Thank you!
You are welcome!!! I am so so happy you enjoyed!
How much soy sauce goes in the marinade? It’s in the marinade picture, but I can’t seem to find it in the marinade ingredients list.
A splash