Grill healthy pork chops with pear and lilly pilly compote
Mmm pork. Mmm pear. Mmm … lilly pilly? Chances are you haven’t had the opportunity to sample this tasty little fruit, but trust us – you’re going to love it. These purple berries grow on native Australian lilly pilly trees and have been eaten for thousands of years by Aboriginal people, but aren’t commonly found in everyday cooking. Ian Thorpe was first introduced to them by a friend on a tour of the botanical gardens in Sydney, and was immediately inspired to cook with them. You too can experiment with them in Ian’s recipe for pork chops with pear and lilly pilly compote – the berries add a slightly peppery taste to contrast the sweetness of the pear. This is one of the many recipes you’ll find in Ian’s paleo-inspired cookbook Eat Well Now, which focuses on great tasting food that is good for you too.
INGREDIENTS
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon fennel seeds, ground
4 x 180 g butterflied pork chops
500 ml white wine
2 pears, peeled and roughly chopped
12 black peppercorns
2 cm piece of ginger, peeled and finely sliced
2 bay leaves
1 cinnamon stick
16 lilly pillies
Note
If you can’t get hold of lilly pillies, you can make the sauce without them, and garnish the dish with warmed red currants instead
TO MAKE
Combine the soy sauce, oil and ground fennel in a shallow dish. Add the pork and coat well, then leave to marinate for 30 minutes.
Pour the wine into a medium saucepan and bring to the boil. Boil for three minutes, then add the pear, peppercorns, ginger, bay leaves and cinnamon stick. Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook for ten minutes. Add the lilly pillies and cook for another 20 minutes until thick. Remove from the heat and scoop out the peppercorns, bay leaves and cinnamon stick (if the peppercorns aren’t visible on the surface, you might have to search for them with the spoon).
Heat a barbecue grill to medium–high. Wipe the excess marinade from the pork chops and cook for four minutes on each side.
Serve the chops with the warm compote.
Serves four.
This is an edited extract from Eat Well Now by Ian Thorpe published by Hardie Grant. Available in stores nationally.
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