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Black pig pork chops in carob beer

Last month I tried the latest creation by the Rocca dei Conti Brewery, a carob beer that they called Qirat.
The name comes from the Arabic word for carat "قيراط", which today indicates the unit of mass used for measuring gemstones and pearls. This term refers to carob seeds and is, in turn, derived from the Greek word kerátiοn (κεράτιον), referring to an ancient practice of weighing gold and gemstones against the seeds contained in a carob pod.

As soon as I opened the bottle and the carob flavours hit me, a recipe came to mind and, today, I finally found the time to try it.

The result is excellent! I used Qirat to make pork chops with onion and cumin. The pork I chose is the "maialino nero degli Iblei", the meat of black pigs of the Ragusa Iblei mountains area. The meat is similar to that of the more famous black pigs from the Nebrodi area, near Messina, but the meat is sweeter in taste because the animals are fed carobs.
I served it with a carob candy just placed on the pork chop which started melting as I brought the dish to the table and gave it an extra sweet carob glace on top and a Sicilian sweet and sour taste.

If you want to know more about carobs, you can find more information in our guide to Sicilian products: carob.

Written on
January 27, 2011
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