Forever Summer

There’s no other way to put this: these are fruit kebabs. I know how this sounds, but that’s not how they taste.

Now that we’ve got that over with, I’ll go on: these skewer-threaded chunks of pineapple are sprinkled with sugar and blitzed on the barbecue or under the grill till that absurdly yellow, tropical-sunshine flesh is scorched a deep, golden brown. Just when you thought it couldn’t get any better, there is more. You make a thick, dark coconut-rum-deepened chocolate sauce and dip the pineapple into it as you eat. For hygiene’s sake, and it’s not often you’ll hear me saying that, it might be wise to give each person their own little bowl of molten, Malibued chocolate sauce for repeated, fondue-style dunkings, though you can simply stick a ladle in a big bowl of the stuff and let everyone spoon the sauce over the pineapple, on their plates, as they eat. To make this less a Barbie-fest, however, you can forget the bamboo skewer element and simply sugar and grill pieces of pineapple and serve them up to be eaten relatively elegantly, with knife and fork, a jugful of hot chocolate sauce on the table alongside.

1 ripe pineapple

approx. 250g demerara sugar

for the chocolate sauce:

200g dark chocolate, minimum 70% cocoa solids

125ml Malibu

120ml double cream

14 bamboo skewers soaked in cold water to stop them catching fire in the heat of the barbecue or grill

Preheat the grill or barbecue. Cut the top and bottom off the pineapple and, working vertically, slice the skin off the fruit. Cut into quarters and then into about three pieces again lengthways so that you have wedges of pineapple. Cut out the woody core and thread the wedges on to the soaked bamboo skewers lengthways and arrange these in a shallow dish.

Put the chocolate, broken up into pieces, into a thick-bottomed pan along with the Malibu and melt over a low heat. Then, stirring, pour in the cream, plus any juice that has gathered from the fruit. When the sauce is thick, smooth and hot, pour into a bowl with a ladle, or enough little bowls to give one per person.

Lay the pineapple kebabs on a sheet of foil and either grill or barbecue the pineapple, thickly coating it with demerara sugar first, until it caramelises and scorches in the heat.

Take off the barbecue and lay them on a large plate and let everyone take them as they want, dipping the pineapple skewers into the hot chocolate sauce as they eat.