VANUATU: Grilled Pork and Sweet Potato with PawPaw Salad

In full disclosure, these recipes were created by Vanuatu chefs in recent years, thus might not be common throughout the islands. But many of the other options either required ingredients or cook times that were well outside the OWW bounds of being accessible or were identical to ones I had cooked for neighboring countries. As the recipes were created to represent the island's cooking and sounded excellent, I ran with them.

PawPaw in the Pacific Islands is just another word for papaya, usually slightly underripe ones.

Grilled Pork and Sweet Potato

3 small orange-fleshed sweet potatoes

1 small bundle of watercress

4 large slices of pre-cooked pork (I used Trader Joe’s pork belly)

2 tablespoons honey

½ teaspoon salt plus more for salting the sweet potato water

½ teaspoon smoked paprika and/or chili flakes

1. Peel the sweet potato and slice into thick slices, ~1 inch. Place in a large pot and cover with cold water and a few pinches of slat. Bring to a boil over high heat, lower, and simmer until potatoes are cooked through and tender. Drain and set aside.

2. While potatoes cook, bring a small pot of water to a boil. Blanch blanch the water cress in it for 1 minutes. Rinse under ice cold water and drain.

3. Coat pork pieces with honey and sprinkle salt and paprika and/or chili flakes on top. Grill until honey is caramelized. Put aside.

4. Layer a few sweet potatoes on a serving dish Top with the blanched watercress. then place pork pieces on top. Serve along side the pawpaw salad.

   
   

PawPaw Salad

½ underride papaya (pawpaw)

1 small cucumber

1 beefsteak or 2 Roma tomatoes

½ red onion

1 scallion

1 bundle watercress

1 lemon

¼ cup crushed macadamia nuts

1. Dice the pawpaw, cucumber, tomato, and onions and place into a bowl.

2. Clean the watercress and add to the bowl.

3. Squeeze the juice of lemon on top of vegetables and sprinkle on the crushes macadamia nuts.

#grilledpork #pawpaw #bungeejumping #globaldinners #cookingtheworld #vanuatu

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FUN FACTS:

• On Pentecost, when the yam crops emerge, locals build wooden towers. Village boys and men perform a ritual called Nanggol, diving from these rickety wooden structures with nothing but vines tied to their ankles.This ritual inspired modern bungee jumping.

• The islands of Vanuatu were well known as cannibals and the first British Missionaries who arrived in 1839 were killed and eaten on the island now known as Erromango. According to anthropologists, the last recorded cannibal killing on Vanuatu was a recent as 1969. While the people of Vanuatu no longer practice cannibalism, the customary cooking practices are still passed down through generations. Apparently the standard cooking time for a human is 3 to 5 hours.

• Located on Tanna Island, Mount Yasur is the most accessible active volcano in the world. You can peer over its rim to see active magma.