Slices of hot, grilled pineapple with mint and citrus sugar.
Make the mint sugar: pull 20 mint leaves of their stalks and put them in the bowl of a food processor with 50 g caster sugar† Process into a light green sugar. (You can also do this with a pestle and mortar or the end of a rolling pain in a mixing bowl.) Grate the rind of a Orange then stir it through the mint and orange sugar.
Make sure a ribbed grill pan is nice and hot. Cut the topknot off the leaves of a ripe pineapple and discard and cut the pineapple in half lengthwise. Cut each half in half again, then cut into wedges to get 16 short pieces.
Place the pineapple pieces on the baking tray and leave for about 8 minutes until the bottom is lightly colored (check regularly) then flip with a pair of kitchen tongs and cook the other side. The fruit should be sweet and juicy with dark brown stripes on the cut edges.
Serve the pineapple slices with the mint and orange sugar, sprinkle the sugar over it while the fruit is hot so that it melts into a lovely puddle around the fruit. Enough for 4-6
Sprinkle the spice sugar over the fruit as soon as possible. The sugar will soften and melt over the pineapple. The sweet citrus mint juices are worth a teaspoon.
As simple as a sweet treat can be, it’s worth being a little careful with your pineapple. Check if the fruit is ripe by squeezing it gently – it should be given gently. The fruit should come out of the baking tray lightly scorched – the smokiness is delicious with the sweet juice.
A Lemon Ice Cream or vanilla ice cream is wonderful with the hot pineapple, although the fruit is good on its own.
You can also roast your pineapple. Stack the prepared fruit in a baking dish and sprinkle with some sugar (keep some on the back for the table). Roast for about 25 minutes at 200C/gas mark 6, basting occasionally with the sugar.
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