When I was creating new recipes for this festive season, I wanted the dishes to express new fragrant and fresh flavours fusing together to bring a hot new vibe to entertaining during the holidays. I still wanted to maintain some core festive spices as part of this first fun canapé, but bring it bang up to date with this fusion Asian plum salsa. There is something about roasting meat in warm cinnamon, ginger and fruity peppercorn spices that make the whole house just full of welcome, and when you pair this with the tart plum salsa, all encased in a softened wrap, its a firecracker of a a starter! Super easy to assemble, so you can pre-prepare everything beforehand and literally pull it all together at the last minute.
Serves 16
3 pork loins, fat and any tough muscle trimmed (this is the whitish-grey muscle that you should always trim off as it toughens the meat when cooking)
4 fresh wheat tortillas (or corn if you are going gluten free)
For the marinade
2 tbs ready made apple sauce
1 tbs brown sugar
2 tbs plum sauce
1 tsp freshly grated ginger
½ tsp freshly cracked pink peppercorns
½ tsp allspice
½ tsp cinnamon
Salt and black pepper for seasoning
3 tbs olive oil
For the plum salsa
5 semi ripe red plums (don’t use the ones that are too ripe as you want a crunch to the salsa)
1 tsp pomegranate molasses (or 1 tbs honey mixed with 1 tbs lemon juice if you can’ t find pomegranate molasses)
1 ½ tbs rapeseed oil
Grated rind of ½ orange
Salt and black pepper for seasoning
Mix all the ingredients for the pork loin marinade. Cover and leave to chill in the fridge for at least 2 hours.
In the meantime, prepare the plum salsa. Slice the plum into small wedges.
Combine all the rest of the salsa ingredients in a glass bowl and add the plum wedges. Leave to chill until required.
20 minutes before serving, remove the pork for the fridge and bring back to room temperature. Heat a wide frying pan, adding 1 tbs olive oil to heat until hot but not smoking.
Place the pork loins into the hot oil, turning round regularly to sear and brown all over.
Lower the heat, add the remaining marinade from the bowl, cover and lower the heat to medium. Cook, turning occasionally for even cooking, basting with the marinade for around 12 minutes. Every 2 – 3 minutes, add a splash of water, so the marinade does not dry and burn. You want to keep it a thick marinade at all times and avoid burning it on the bottom of the saucepan.
Remove the meat from the pan and let it rest on a clean chopping board, covered with foil paper. Keep the leftover marinade juices from the pan.
Now for the assembly. Gently heat one wrap and cut into quarters. Wrap in a soft cloth and heat in the microwave for 40 seconds or so until slightly softened. Don’t heat them too long as they will get hard. You want them soft enough to fold.
Add 2 tbs cranberry sauce and ½ cup water to the remaining marinade sauces from the pan. Heat until slightly thickened for 2 minutes.
Slice each pork loin into approximately 10 thin slices each. Spread 1 tsp of the sauce onto a wrap triangle. Place one slice of pork on the sauce. Top with a heaped teaspoon of plum salsa. Finish by bringing the two opposing sides of the wrap together as shown, securing with a nice bamboo style cocktail stick or just a regular toothpick will do.
Place your wraps on a large rustic platter, with a heap of the leftover plum salsa on the side with a small bowl of the remaining dipping sauce. Watch how quick these get devoured !!
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