This recipe comfortably serves a group of 6 for supper. It requires half an hour of preparation and a cooking period of approximately 2 hours and 45 minutes. To prepare the meal, you will require the following ingredients:
– Half of 3 onions, with their skin unpeeled
– 5 cloves of garlic
– 5 spicy red chillies
– 2 pieces of star anise
– 3 tablespoons of cumin seeds
– 3 tablespoons of coriander seeds
– A piece of ginger the size of a thumb, grated
– 1 tablespoon of sea salt
– 3 tablespoons of white wine vinegar
– A 1.5-kilogram pork belly, both ribs and skin excluded
– Half a pineapple, cored, skinned and cubed
– Half a finely diced red onion
– 1 finely chopped small red chilli
– Zest and juice of 1 lime
– 1 teaspoon of coriander seeds
– 12 soft tacos made from corn
– Fresh leaves of coriander and lime wedges for garnish
Heat your oven to 200 degrees Centigrade before launching the cooking process. Craft the marinade first by putting the onions, garlic, chillies, star anise, cumin and coriander on a baking tray suitable for the oven. Roast these for half an hour until they are soft and the skin looks nicely scorched.
Lower the oven to 150 degrees Centigrade, then put the cooked elements into a blender. Mix in ginger, sea salt, and vinegar. The mixture ought to form a coarse paste, and if necessary, pour in water to free it up. In case your pork belly still has skin, take it off, or ask your butcher for help. Put the belly on a baking tray, leave the paste to cool a bit before smearing the belly with it, and then wrap everything in aluminium foil, making sure there are no open spaces.
Bake for roughly 2½ hours, until the meat is tender. Take off the foil, raise the oven heat to 220 degrees Centigrade, and continue baking for an additional 10 minutes till the paste chars on the top side of the pork belly. Let it sit for 15 minutes.
When preparing the pineapple salsa to accompany your pork, combine the pineapple, red onion, red chillies, lime zest and juice, and coriander seeds in a bowl. Mix them thoroughly with a spoon. Just before you serve, stir in the coriander leaves.
Once the pork belly has been allowed to sit, dice it into petite pieces and place them in heated soft tacos. Drizzle the pineapple salsa on top of the pork, and adorn with additional coriander leaves and slices of lime.