Recipe : Pork Chidkan / Kodava Pandi Chidkana

I first tasted chidkan in Bangalore last December when @spiceupthekari ordered it in for me from Kodava Samaja.

It was instant love at first bite! I searched high and low for a recipe for the last 8 months to no avail. Requests to Kodava friends were unsuccessful and I was wondering how to entice the chefs at Kodava Samaja to part with the recipe on my next trip to India. 

My general enquiry into this seemed to indicate that this is a recipe mostly made as a bar snack.

Then last week, I listened to @historywali chatting with @pigout_coorgkitchen and when I checked out Anjali Ganapathy's insta, I found a recipe that looked extremely promising.

Below is a pic of Anjali's original recipe on instagram at @pigout_coorgkitchen. I highly recommend following her for accessible insights into Kodava cuisine.

 
We haven’t been getting a wide variety of pork cuts during lockdown, but I found some Kassler chops that had the right fat meat ratio, so that’s what I used.

A bit of smokiness and saltiness in this brined meat, worked quite well even in the finished product.

I fried the cooked pork in a tbsp of oil, rather than deep frying it, but I still got a good crispness.

No access to parangi malu or jirgi mirsang, so I used the spiciest green chillies available here in Joburg.

This recipe may not be as famous as pandi curry, but is definitely a keeper and will be made often. Thanks so much Anjali!

I first thought I'd turn the water the pork was cooked in, into soup, but then I cooked moong dhal with that pork flavoured water for the same dinner, which just added oodles of umami flavour.

I also served Gomen / Hamli / Collard Greens with this dinner

Very very satisfying dinner indeed.

Do not be tempted to cook more than 250gms of pork per person as this dish needs to be consumed immediately after cooking, otherwise it just won't work - it will turn too hard.  

This is how I cooked it with my substitutes. 

Ingredients:

500gms boneless pork with fat  - chopped in 1 inch pieces - don't stint on the fat, it gives lovely crispy fatty flavour and texture. I used kassler chops, sorpotel cut works too

1.5 cups water 

7-8 green chillies, the spiciest you can find if you have no access to parangi malu / jirgi mirsang / birds eye chilli

2 cloves garlic

a pinch or 2 of rock salt ( I used less since kassler chops are smoked and brined) 

lemon / lime juice

 

Method :

Boil pork with 1.5 cups water in a pressure cooker until 3/4 cooked (Anjali recommends approx 2 whistles on high).

You can either chop the pork and then cook or cook the pork and then chop, whatever works better for you. 

Drain all water from the pork. 

The water can be used as stock, for a soup or I just cooked the dhal for dinner in it. 

As the pork is drying, make a fresh coarsely ground paste of  green chillies, garlic and salt (feel free to adjust quantities to your liking, this ratio worked well for us) - think thecha.

 

In 1 tbsp oil fry the pork, it will also release a fair amount of oil. This is going to spatter. 

Remove the pork from the oil (I ended up with about 2.5 tbsp oil + fat which went into tadka for the dhal)

Mix the ground chilli paste into it and squeeze lemon / lime juice generously. I used half a large lemon.

 

 

Serve immediately and be transported into heaven.

This dish is served as a snack / "tastings" with drinks, but it worked well for our dinner too.

This is exactly the version I had from Kodava Samaja. I have another half kg of the pork chops left, which I'm thinking of cooking into another version of chidkana that Anjali has shared, but that one uses kachampulli vinegar.