It goes without saying that Portugal has a national love affair with pork. Just look through their cookbooks or at a restaurant menu and you can’t help but see the devotion to this particular meat. There are hundreds of recipe variations: roasted, fried, grilled or broiled. Dishes are reinvented over and over again with lemons, dates, apples, oranges, fresh herbs, mushrooms, chestnuts and of course pineapple.
The Azorean pineapple is special. It owes its quality and unique taste to the way it is produced. The Azores archipelago is an autonomous region of Portugal located in the North Atlantic ocean. Since the sub-tropical islands don’t benefit from hot equatorial sun, the small crowned fruits are grown in glass greenhouses, which are intentionally filled with smoke to help catalyze simultaneous flowering. Each pineapple takes two years to mature. Sweeter and more succulent than their larger, tropical grown siblings. Nowhere else in the world is pineapple grown in this manner, making it completely unique to the Azores.
This is one of those kind of recipes that is very basic but tasty.
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- 680 grams pork country style ribs, cut into serving pieces
- salt to taste
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 tsp dried rosemary, crushed
- 1 bay leaf
- black pepper to taste
- 6 1/2 Tbsp white wine vinegar
- 2 small onions, thinly sliced
- 2 Tbsp olive oil
- 4 slices fresh pineapple, cut in quarters or thirds
Ingredients
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- In a resealable, large plastic bag, combine garlic, rosemary, bay leaf & vinegar. Season ribs with salt & pepper & add to marinade. Allow ribs to marinate in refrigerator for about an hour.
- Preheat oven to 300 F. Pour ribs & marinade into a baking dish; top with onion slices & drizzle with oil. Roast slowly for about an hour or until VERY tender. Remove ribs from oven & add pineapple pieces. Return to oven for another 5 minutes or so, ribs should be slightly golden brown. Serve with some steamed rice to which some peas have been added.
