BRAAI DAY: Five ways with pork — sosaties, 3 chops recipes, and a crackling good quest

Green fig preserve, grilled apples, fresh orange with rosemary and cinnamon, and the classic combination of honey and mustard are all great options for pork on the braai. And yes, you can cook a hunk of pork belly on the braai – I should know, I’ve done it.

Pork almost invariably needs something sweet, and that helps with the charring of the meat as well, which makes pork chops, sosaties and even belly perfect for braaing over the coals.

If you follow my food writing you’ll know that I regard the syrup in jars of fruit preserves as an ingredient in its own right and here’s a recipe that puts it to great use: mix some of the syrup from a jar of green fig preserves with Moutarde de Dijon aux miel – Dijon mustard with honey.

Pork and fruit are natural partners, and mixing apple juice with soy sauce, with a hint of garlic, makes a lot of braai sense. For this recipe I also grilled slices of apple on a plancha, right on hot coals.

Pork loin chops cut thick and served with the bone cut away have become a common sight in butcheries; or ask your butcher to cut and trim them for you. These pork chops have a nice zesty flavour from orange and some herby punch from rosemary, and a cinnamon hit for a sweetly spicy finish.

Here’s a pork belly recipe from my Karoo days, and it’s one for the braai. As Barack Obama might have said when presented with these pork chops, “Yes you can!” You’d think it would turn out tough and inedible, but the trick is to treat the pork belly exactly the way we braai lamb flanks in the Karoo: slowly, and side-on.

A balance of sweet and sour notes suits pork perfectly. This recipe melds an old South African braai tradition with the sweet and sour concept from Chinese cuisine. You can marinate it for a few hours or overnight if you like, or simply whip up the ingredients and use it as a baste. DM