Haitian Griot
Make sure youpurchase boneless pork meat. It might be a tad more expensive, but at least youwon’t need to separate the meat from the bone before you make your cubes. Thatwill make it easier for amateur chefs who are not pros in the kitchen.Haitians love to eat pork meat, especially fried pork.The name they have given to fried pork is called griot. It is one of the mostpopular foods that people eat in Haiti. Griot may be served as an individualmeal or used as an ingredient in a bigger meal. In most cases, griot isprepared for special occasions, events, family gatherings, and parties. The fried pork meat is usually cut and sliced into cubesbefore they’re marinated in sour orange juice or lime juice. The marinatedcubes are then roasted slowly until they’re fully tender and soft. After that,the cubes get fried in cooking oil until they turn brown or caramel. Haitianslove preparing their fried pork cubes in this manner. It goes great with manyother foods and side dishes, including pik liz and plantains.
Ingredients
- 3-4 lbs of Pork (cut)
- 1 Lemon or Lime Juice
- ¾ tbsp of Salt
- ½ tsp of Black Pepper
- 5 Sprigs Thyme
- 5 Cloves
- 1 tbsp of Epis
- 1 Cup of Sour Orange Juice
- 2 Cloves Garlic (diced)
- 2 Medium-sized Onions (diced)
- 1 Scallion (chopped)
- 1 Scotch Bonnet Pepper (chopped)
Instructions
- You can start out by preparing the pork meat since it is the mostimportant ingredient of griot. Most of the other ingredients are merelyseasonings and marinade ingredients that enhance the flavor of the pork. So,what you’ll want to do is begin by cutting your pork meat into medium-sizedcubes.
- Soak the pork meat cubes into your sour orange juice orlime juice. You can choose whichever choose you prefer to use. The Haitianswould refer to this as “washing” the meat with the juice. You can run coolwater over the meat afterwards to reduce the intensity of the juice taste,although some people like it as is.
- Now you’ll need to season the soaked pork cubes with avariety of different seasonings, such as parsley, thyme, rosemary, Adoboseasoning salt, garlic powder and pepper. If you prefer any other types ofseasonings, you can add them to your pork meat as well. These seasonings willserve as the marinade for the meat. Leave the cube meat pieces to marinate forup to 240 minutes (or 4 hours).
- Take out a frying pan or pot and put it on the stove. Put the marinatedpork cubes into the pan. Set the heat temperature to about medium-high and letthe meat sit there until the water evaporates. You should periodically stir themeat and let it cook on the stove until you see it turn tender. Put a lid overthe pan to speed up the cooking process. It usually takes about 30 to 40minutes.
- Take off the pork meat from the stove. Place a deep fryeror skillet onto the hot stove and put some cooking oil into the fryer. Afterthe oil heats up, place the pork meat cubes into the fryer. Try to fry eachside of the pork meat cubes evenly, so they are all brown or golden colored.Then you can serve them with whichever side dishes or meals that you want.
- You should have enough servings for an entire family of 4to 6 people. Haitian griot is wonderful to serve with vegetables or in a stew.Just get creative with your griot as the Haitians do.
Video
Notes
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