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.

Recipe : Pork Jalfrezi - Indian Pulled Pork

This is not the jalfrezi curry made “famous” in the “Indian” restaurants of London. Think of it as an Indian version of pulled pork.

Chef Atul Kocchar in his book Atul's Curries of the World writes that, "in the UK, the word 'jalfrezi' is commonly misunderstood to represent the heat level of a curry...it's thought of as a 'medium heat' curry...in fact, the word derives from the Bengali word 'jhal' meaning 'spicy' and 'jalfrezi' is the term for the original dish in which cooked meats are stir-fried over a high heat with vegetables such as pepper and onion.

Jalfrezi can be made with any meat of your choice including chicken, but red meat works better in texture for this dish.

This was a dish my nana cooked when there were leftover bits of meat (mostly beef) from a roast or if she felt the meat was “kisparla” - i.e. meat falling apart like pulled meat.

I had stewed pork in ginger, lemon and red chillies and was using the stock in other dishes, while the meat just kept getting more and more kisparla lending beautiful flavour, but too flimsy/fiddly to eat.

So I fried it up with onions, tomatoes, chillies, potatoes and spices - such a taste of eating at my grandparents home.

The recipe below is the way I made I made it this time, scroll to the end to see the way my nana would make it.

Ingredients:

250 gms leftover boneless cooked roast or stewed meat or meat leftover when making stock (see option at end of post)

3 tbsp mustard oil (can use regular oil, but mustard oil gives a nice bite)

2" cinnamon

1 star anise

1 large onion halved and sliced thin

2 tbsp chopped ginger

100 gms boiled potato skinned and chopped large (I used halved skin on baby potatoes this time)

2 large fully ripe tomatoes sliced thin

2-8 green chillies chopped (as per taste)

salt to taste

handful fresh corriander chopped

Method:

Pull the meat apart - so it forms threads / reshis.

Pork fat and skin or chicken skin can also be added chopped in small chunks.

Take a large frying pan on high heat.

When it is hot, add the oil.

When the oil is almost smoking, add the cinnamon and star anise.

As soon as the spices start releasing their aroma, add the sliced onions and fry until they start to caramelise.

From here on, the recipe needs constant monitoring and gentle stirring.

Now add the ginger and boiled potatoes and fry, till the edges of the potato start to crisp up.

Now add the tomatoes and turn the heat to medium.

Cook until the tomatoes release all their pulp and the tomato skins start to curl up on themselves. This will take a little time, but this caramelisation of the onion and tomatoes is where all the taste in this dish comes from.

Now add the chopped green chillies , give a quick stir, then add the shredded meat. You can increase the heat now, but keep an eye and keep stirring.

Adjust salt to taste (you would have most likely added salt when initially cooking the meat, so be cautious.)

Fry until the meat starts crisping up.

Garnish with corriander and serve hot with rice and dhal or rotis and dhal.

I served it with rice, leftover rajma madra and cabbage stir fried with crisped up garlic, topped with chilli oil.

Kim's Tip 1 : If you don't have leftover meat, slow cook 300 - 400 gms meat (bones extra if you want) with chopped onions, ginger, garlic, red chillies or spices and veggies of your choice in lots of water. Use the liquid as stock in any dish and use the meat for this recipe.

Kim's Tip 2 : If your tomatoes have no tartness at all, you may like to add a squeeze of lime and stir, once the meat is fried.

Kim's Tip 3 : Do not stint on the oil in this recipe. I rarely use a lot of oil, but this recipe needs the oil to fry the onions, the tomatoes, the potatoes and the meat. It will seperate at the end and you can remove it before serving.

Kim's Tip 4 : Do not make this in very large quantities, the meat needs space in the pan to cook properly.

Kim's Tip 5 : Garnish with sliced fresh onion rings for a stunning presentation

Nana's Version Ingredients:

250 gms leftover boneless cooked roast or stewed meat or meat leftover when making stock.

3 tbsp sunflower oil

2" cinnamon

3-4 cloves

1 large onion halved and sliced thin

2 tbsp chopped ginger

2 large fully ripe tomatoes sliced thin

2-8 green chillies chopped (as per taste)

salt to taste

100 gms boiled potato cut in slices and deep fried

handful fresh corriander chopped

Method :

Same as above, except the deep fried potatoes are added at the end just before serving.

Recipe : Wak Serjak - Pork Stew from Tripura - North East India

My red meat of choice is pork. I grew up eating pork on Sundays. My grandmother was an amazing cook and made the most delicious pork dishes. Manglorean style pork is heavy though and very conducive to Sunday afternoon naps. So not really dishes for mid-week. and we keep our dinners light as far as possible.

So it was a fantastic revelation for me, when we lived in Guwahati in 2011, to discover a multitude of pork dishes that were super tasty and yet very easy to prepare (no heavy grinding of masalas) and super light on the tummy. As light as eating chicken.

A lot of pork dishes in Assam, are cooked with local herbs which are difficult to find outside of the state. My friend Sanjukta is a great resource for local recipes and her blog is an excellent starting point.

When I lived in Guwahati, there weren't too many local food bloggers, so the first book that I bought for help with local cuisine was Hoihnu Hazel's collaboration with Penguin. This recipe is from that book.

I'm happy to say that in the decade since then, North East Indian food is slowly working itself into public consciousness due to the enterprising passion and commitment of a few foodies like Gitika Saikia in Mumbai and  Sneha Saikia in Delhi.

Wak Serjak in its thinnest form is like a soup, you can however let it simmer for awhile so it gets thicker. And in the Manglorean/Goan fashion of maturing pork, keep reheating leftovers (if you have any) daily, until it becomes a nice thick mass. Its super-delicious at every stage.

Ingredients:
2 kg pork (I like a good balance of meat and fat and bones - here I buy pork belly and ribs seperately to add to the mix)
2 tsp oil
4 tbsp ginger paste
6-8 green chillies chopped
4 medium onions chopped
6 medium tomatoes chopped
salt to taste

Method:
Wash and drain pork. Cut into bite sized pieces.

Heat oil in a deep pot and add ginger, green chillies, onions and tomatoes, fry till golden brown.

Add pork and stir-fry for awhile until pork is cooked. I tend to cook the fat and bones first so the fat breaks down, before adding the meat.

Add salt and 4 cups water. Then cover and leave to simmer for awhile (use less water if you want a thicker gravy.

Adjust salt and fresh chillies to taste.

Serve hot with cooked rice.

Optional garnish - freshly shopped corriander leaves for a fresh herby taste.


Note:
Optional - since the tomatoes here in the UK, don't have any tartness, I added the juice of one lemon - to taste.

I found Bergamot lemons in the market last week and as an Earl Grey aficionado, I had to bring them home. In the North East of India, the tomatoes are tart enough that you don’t need to add any thing citric. But here I added the juice of a whole bergamot to 2 kilos of meat.

The essential fragrance of the bergamot was lost in the cooking, so it tasted like any other lemon in the mix.

Cooking with Fennel

This is the first time I'm cooking with fennel (the vegetable, I use the seeds regularly, even the fresh version of the seeds which used to be available in this season in Gujarat)

Pork & fennel chilli, fennel scented couscous and a carrot, apple, fennel slaw.

I had got the fennel in my @abelandcole box a week ago, but hadn’t been home to cook. So it had started to look a bit wilted.

I used the best crisp thin bits in the slaw, the thick semi-wilted bits went in the chilli, and the dehydrated bits went into the couscous as it was being cooked and discarded when it was drained. The fronds were used as garnish.

Jugaad cooking as we call this in India.

Quite happy with the flavour, I will buy this vegetable/herb again. How do you cook fennel?

Recipe : Nana Maggie's Mangalorean Pork Salad / Dohkhleih

Most Manglorean pork dishes are heavy with masalas and long cooking processes. This is one of the few lighter pork dishes which works especially well in summer, when we wanted pork, but in a lighter form.

Ingredients:

About 1 kg pork with a good balance of fat and meat - no bones.

Salt to taste

2 tbsp finely chopped ginger

1-2 tbsp lemon juice/vinegar

2-3 green chillies chopped

1 medium red onion chopped

2 tbsp chopped corriander

Method:

Boil the pork with salt, chopped ginger and lemon juice / vinegar to taste without any water.

Once it is cooked, remove the excess water (reserve for use later - for heating up the dish or as a stock) and let the meat fry a little bit.

Mix with chopped green chillies, onions and corriander.

Serve warm when freshly mixed or at room temperature.

This dish is not meant to be reheated.

This is one of the lightest pork dishes that is made in Mangalore and surprisingly I ate something very similar in Shillong where it is called dohkhleih.

Recipe : Indian Style Spicy Scotch Eggs - Nargisi Kofta

Scotch Eggs are a great way of using up leftover mince and they are very yummy too. I don't have any post-frying pictures, as they disappeared so quickly!

These ones were made with leftover low fat pork mince

I made this minced meat recipe of mine without the tomatoes or the peas. But you can use any recipe you like.

Take the leftover mince and potatoes and grind it in the food processor (add water if it isn't grinding & then later slow cook on a low flame to dry it out to the right consistency)

Add fresh coriander leaves and fresh chilli chopped.

You can fry these as it is for cutlets.
Deep fry them as meat balls and use in your favourite pasta sauce or Indian curry.

But to make Nargisi Koftas:

Boil eggs, cool, peel and dry completely before encasing it in the mince.

I sliced the eggs in half before covering with mince, but you can make them whole and slice before serving if you prefer

Dip in beaten egg & coat with rawa/semolina (optional - makes it crispy) and fry on a low flame with a little oil (they can also be deep fried)

I make this with beef, chicken or lean pork mince.

They get gobbled up so quickly.

You can even stuff them in burger buns or pita breads for a more filling meal.

Recipe : Mexican Pork Chilli, Bulgur Wheat & Apple Salsa

This meal from Gousto came with Bulghur Wheat, but you can also substitute it with a nutty rice like brown rice or serve it with corn bread.

Ingredients :

1 medium red onion - peeled and finely diced
30ml red wine vinegar
1 tsp ground allspice
250g pork (or beef) mince
130g bulgur wheat
1 beef stock cube
1 chipotle paste sachet (40g)
1 tomato paste sachet (32g)
1 apple diced - skin on
40g cheddar cheese grated
Olive oil
Pepper
Salt
Vegetable oil

Method:

In a medium-sized bowl take 1/4 of the diced onion, add a pinch of salt and the red wine vinegar and set aside to pickle.

Add the bulgur wheat to a pot with plenty of boiled water (the same as you would for pasta) and a pinch of salt and cook over a high heat for 7-9 min or until tender with a slight bite, then drain and return to the pot

Heat a large, wide-based pan (preferably non-stick) with a drizzle of vegetable oil over a medium-low heat

Once hot, add 3/4 of the diced onion and a big pinch of salt

Cook for 5 min or until softened and starting to caramelise

Stir the ground allspice into the softened onion and cook for 1 min

Add the pork mince and cook for 3-4 min or until beginning to brown, breaking it up with a wooden spoon as you go

Stir the tomato paste and chipotle paste into the browned mince and cook for 1 min

Dissolve the beef stock cube in 350ml boiled water

Add the beef stock to the mince and reduce the heat to medium-low

Cook for 10-15 min or until thick and reduced to a chilli-like consistency – this is your Mexican pork chilli

Add the diced apple to the pickled onion with 2 tbsp olive oil and season lightly with salt and pepper – this is your apple salsa

Fluff the cooked bulgur with a fork and season with a pinch of salt and pepper

Serve the Mexican pork chilli over the cooked bulgur with the apple salsa to the side

Top with the grated cheese

I also served it with grilled corn on the cob to add more veggies to this meal.

Recipe : Potato & Comte Savoury Tart / Pie

Tesco has a range called #TescoFinest in which they package some of the best food under their own brand name. I had a chance to #TryForLess, some of their cheese from the Tesco Finest Range and I decided to go for a Comte Cheese.

Comte is a French full fat hard cooked cheese made with unpasteurised cow's milk, traditionally made and matured in the Jura region. Since I had never tasted it before, I though this would be a wonderful opportunity.

But once it arrived home, I was stumped - "What should I cook with it?" Fortunately Tesco on Twitter came to the rescue and directed me towards a Potato and comté savoury tart recipe.

The recipe looked interesting enough, but I wanted to add more flavour and a bit of meat to it, so I made a few changes. The original recipe is vegetarian. I added some pancetta for flavour and meatiness, but this recipe can be made without it.

There's a bit of an eggwash used to seal the pastry, but there isn't much liquid in this recipe, so you can skip the egg if you want to turn it completely vegetarian.

Ingredients :
200g Tesco Lighter ready rolled shortcrust pastry (or make at home)
a little plain flour (maida), for dusting
1 egg yolk, beaten (I added the white while cooking the onions)
500g salad potatoes
100g pancetta
5 ml olive oil
5g butter
6 cloves garlic chopped
2 medium onions, finely sliced
75g Comte, grated
50g Chives or other fresh herb chopped
salt
pepper

Method:
Line a 7 inch springform fluted tart tin with nonstick baking paper.
Roll the pastry out on a lightly floured surface to 5mm thickness and use it to line tart tin pressing in well all over.
Prick the base all over and chill.

Cook the potatoes in a large saucepan of boiling, salted water until tender, usually 15-20 minutes.
Drain and allow to cool.

Preheat the oven to 190°C.

Heat a pan and fry the Pancetta in it until it begins to crisp up.
Remove the pancetta and keep aside, but leave the oil in the pan.
Melt the butter and olive oil in the same pan over a moderate heat and add the garlic.
When they begin to crisp/brown a bit, add the onions, sweating with a little salt until soft; 6-7 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Reduce the heat and let the onions slowly caramelise, stirring occasionally.
Quickly stir in the egg white from the separated egg.
Take the pan off the flame.
Mix in half the chopped chives/herbs

Remove the pastry from the fridge as the onions caramelise and line it with nonstick baking paper and baking beans. Blind bake for 15 minutes until the edges just start to colour.
Remove from the oven and discard the paper and baking beans.
Then return to the oven for 5 minutes to brown the base a little.
Remove from the oven and brush all over with the beaten egg yolk to create a seal.
Leave to cool on a wire rack.

Reduce the oven to 170°C.

Slice the potatoes into even sized discs.

Arrange the onion mixture across the base of the pastry, then arrange the potato discs in concentric, overlapping circles so that they cover the entire surface.

Sprinkle the comté cheese and remaining chives/herbs on top and season well with salt and pepper.

Bake for 15-20 minutes until the potatoes have browned a little and the cheese has melted.
Remove and allow to cool in the tin before serving.

Serve slices as is, for a snack or with a side salad for a complete balanced meal.

What I would do differently - When I added the grated cheese pre-baking (I used only about 50 gms) it looked like a lot, but once it melted down, the cheese flavour was very subtle.  I would use a lot more cheese when I try this recipe again. The cheese combines well with the potato.

Disclosure : I received the Comte Cheese through the Tesco Orchard program in exchange for a review

Recipe : Bacon & Cheese Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms (Veg Option also)

I know I have not posted anything on my blogs for awhile. Please excuse me, we have been in the middle of another International Relocation and this time the paperwork to move our cat with us was quite maddening! It led the dh to exclaim "It would be easier to take a 100 illegal labourers from India to the UK, than to legally move a cat!"

Christmas was extremely quiet after a very long time. We have hosted the family Christmas in our house for the last few years, so it was a bit depressing to be just the 2 of us and the cat for Christmas Day. Especially since Christmas for me has always meant spending it with family. This is the 3rd Christmas of my life, when I haven't been able to spend it surrounded by my parents and siblings.

To make me feel better and snap out of missing everyone at home, we visited the Southbank Christmas Market, went for the Carol Service at St Pauls, Christmas Mass at the 12th Century St James Church next door to our house and finally Winter Wonderland at Hyde Park. Christmas here is very different from Christmas in the US (and also India, Egypt and Dubai) All the locals seem to leave town and the city is filled with tourists from the rest of UK and the rest of Europe.

In all our jaunts across town, I rarely hear English being spoken between people, unless it is a business transaction. The guys from whom we bought our phone connections were from India and Sri Lanka. Our Coffee Shop guys all speak fluent Italian (I still follow bits of conversation) and I had a broken Arabic conversation with an Algerian managing a French Pattiserrie.. We had a brilliant meal last week at Daquise - a Polish restaurant. Our neighbours in the building are from Japan and Australia. Yes, we seem to have landed in the middle of a much larger melting pot.

I've been using the oven a lot here (until our shipment of personal furniture and crockery arrives in February, I am making do with rental stuff and they are more conducive to roasts and baking, than dal chawal type meals)

So today I just quickly whipped up a batch of these Bacon & Cheese Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms in about 20 minutes from start to finish and they were very yum.

Ingredients:
4 Large Portobello mushrooms
salt & pepper to season
Mexican chipotle flakes (my new favourite ingredient, they lend a lovely sweet, spicy, smoky taste to everything - you can substitute with regular chilli flakes)
a handful of bacon lardons - chopped (Marks & Spencer had a special festive bacon lardons on sale which added more flavour to the dish)
a handful of meltable cheese - grated (I usd a mature cheddar)
2-3 drops of oil

Method:
Dab the bottom of the mushroom with a bit of oil to prevent sticking.
Preheat the oven to 200C
Season the mushrooms with salt, pepper and chilli flakes (or any herbs of your choice)

Add a few chopped lardons on top of each mushroom.

Top with grated cheese

Pop in the oven for about 10 minutes (depending on the size of your mushrooms)

Serve hot with bread (to mop up the mushroom juices)

Optional : Garnish with chopped herbs of your choice


Option : 
You can make it Vegetarian, by omitting the bacon and mixing 2 types of grated cheese and some chopped herbs like chives.

If you want more substance, substitute the bacon with seasoned mashed potatoes

Recipe : Goan Feijoada - Pork and Beans Stew - (Vegan option possible)

The Last batch of Joao's sausages that I bought and turned into a Choriz Fry, weren't very good (Joao's buys their sausages from various suppliers and then brand it with their name, so you can't be sure what you are going to get). The flavour was really strong, but the masala wasn't spicy or sour enough. The sausages really needed something to tone down the flavours that it did have and I needed to be able to add more spice and tartness without the salt going completely out of whack.

That's when I remembered the Goan dish of Feijoada. This is a dish that you won't normally find served in restaurants, but on the dining tables at family homes. Feijoada is a pork and bean stew that finds its origins in Portuguese cuisine, but it has been adapted to Goan sensibilities by using the Goan sausages (choriz), some Goan recipes also use the Portuguese traditional salted pork. This dish is renowned in Brazil, where it is cooked with a milder variety of sausage, and a lot of pork offal.

There are Goans who turn this into a Vegan stew, by substituting the pork sausages with soya sausages. But given that the choriz have their own strong spices, you will need to adjust the seasonings quite a bit from my recipe.

I looked at a couple of different recipes on and offline. Maria Teresa Menezes, in her excellent Essential Goan Cookbook advocates cooking together soaked rajma (kidney beans) or lobia (black eyed peas) with onions, tomatoes and choriz. Just all added to one pan and cooked till done.

Antoine Lewis has a slightly fancier recipe involving bacon, which I would have loved to try, but for the fact that I had run out of bacon at home.

So, I followed my friend Gia's general instructions (I had been very successful with her Goan Choriz Pulao recipe, so I trust her implicitly when it comes to Goan food).

She said "cook the beans separately first and discard the water. Fry the onions and tomatoes, add whatever spices you are using, then the sausage meat. Finally, add the cooked beans and mix it all together. At this stage you can add as much water as you need and cook further until done"
I had already cooked up the sausages with the potatoes, so I followed the rest of the recipe with inspirations from other recipes that I had read.

Kim's Tips :
I think it would be best to boil the sausages in 50 ml water before adding to the stew, but you can also let it cook in the stew. Unless you are using the home made rosary sausages. Those need to have all the string cut off and are definitely better off being pre-boiled and unstrung before adding to the stew.

Once you have boiled the choriz/sausages, you can get a better idea of the spices and seasoning that you need to add to the stew to get a better flavour. We love tartness, garlic and spicy, so my recipe reflects this.

Ingredients:
500 gms rajma or lobia (red kidney beans or black eyed peas)
pinch of heeng (asafoetida)
250 gms Goan Choriz sausage (or Vegan sausage)
2 large onions
3 large tomatoes
1 pod garlic chopped (pod not clove)
4-15 green chillies chopped (depending on your spice tolerance, I used 15 since my choriz weren't spicy enough)
1 tsp coconut oil (you can use regular oil)
vinegar to taste (preferably Goan Toddy vinegar or apple cider)
salt to taste (remember the sausages are heavily salted so keep tasting)
Fresh coriander to garnish (optional)


Method:
Soak the rajma or lobia for at least 6-8 hours or overnight.
Pressure cook with enough water to cover and a pinch of heeng, until done.
When done, strain & discard the water.

Lightly boil the sausages in 50-100 ml water
Remove the skin (I like the sausage skin, so I just leave large pieces of sausage skin in the pot for myself) and break up the meat and masala.

Take a really large pan (1.5 to 2 times the size of a pan you would really need work best with stews)
Heat the oil.
Add the garlic, onions and tomatoes and cook till onions are light brown and the tomatoes begin to disintegrate.
Add the chillies and fry for a minute.
Add the drained rajma and a little fresh water and stir well.
If you like, you can semi mash some of the beans in the pan, for a thicker consistency.

Now add the sausages and the water that they were cooked in.
Add a little water and let it stew for a couple of minutes, so the masala from the sausages disperses into the stew.
Taste and adjust vinegar and salt.
Let the stew simmer for awhile on a low flame, so that all the flavours can blend together.

Garnish with fresh coriander if using and serve hot with rice or pao bread buns.

Like most stews, this one too tastes better the next day.

Recipe : Goan Choriz Fry

This is the simplest of all the choriz recipes that I know. My mum often made this at home and served it as a side with rice and dhal.

My friend David, used to get really good quality choriz, which he used to cut like regular sausages and then serve a piece of sausage and a piece of potato on a toothpick as an appetiser with drinks.

This is really very quick to prepare when you are in a hurry to create a protein side dish as the choriz is always stored at room temperature. Its actually faster to prepare than the accompanying Goan/Manglorean red rice.

Ingredients:
250 gms Goan Choriz
2 large onions chopped
2 medium potatoes peeled and chopped
chopped coriander leaves to garnish (optional)

Method :
In a wide pan, place the sausages flat.
Add onions and potatoes to the pan
Pour in a thin layer of water so it comes up to half the height of the sausage.
Cover and cook till potatoes are done, stirring occasionally
Slit the skin and de-string the sausages if necessary and continue to cook it with the cover open, until the water all dries up and the potatoes start to crisp up.
Serve hot with pao bread or rice and dhal.

Note:
You can chop the potatoes smaller. I chop them slightly larger, so that those who are on a "no carb diet" at home can pick them out and keep them aside. :)

Recipe : Assamese Style Pork Fry

Delicacy in Guwahati was my favourite Assamese restaurant for simple home style food. Their pork fry and pork patot diya (baked in banana leaves) were my favourite items on the menu.

I've been craving that pork fry so much since I left Guwahati, and neither of my North East recipe books (Penguins - The Essential North East Cookbook and Ambrosia from the Assamese Kitchen) seemed to have the recipe that I was looking for. So I requested my friend Sanjukta, who is Assamese if she knew a recipe for this dish. Sanjukta currently writes a Food Column for G Plus - a weekly news magazine in Guwahati.

She gave me a simple straightforward recipe, that I used as a starting point for my pork fry.
"Marinate pork in crushed ginger and garlic, salt, pepper and some red chill powder. Now take the marinated pork in a wok and cook on low flame for over an hour. Keep stirring from time to time to avoid burning of the meat Now once it's done, chop onions and fry it it little oil in high flame. Add some haldi if u want. Add some chopped green chillies and stirring add the cooked pork into it. Add some more salt if required. Fry for some more time until done"

My recipe follows. I used 20 green chillies and didn't find it as spicy as I remember, so I added another 10 towards the end. If you don't like your food spicy, you can ignore the green chillies completely or lower the quantity.

Ingredients:
2 kg pork cubes - about 1" size (I used a mix of 1 kg ribs and 1 kg boneless to get a good ratio of meat and fat, but any curry cut should be fine)
4 tbsp ginger garlic paste (freshly pounded is a better option, but packaged will do)
2 tbsp garlic paste
2 tbsp pepper

1 tbsp vinegar
1 tbsp chilli powder
1.5 tbsp salt
1 tbsp mustard oil
2 large onions (roughly chopped)
2 medium potatoes (chopped same size as pork cubes)
1 tbsp turmeric (haldi) powder
30 green chillies (slit - optional or adjust to taste)

Method :
Marinate pork in ginger garlic paste, garlic paste, pepper, vinegar, chilli powder and salt at least for an hour. Overnight or longer is a better option.

Heat the oil in a large pan or wok (the more surface area, the better)

Put the fat pieces in the pan (not the meat, so the fat cooks for longer and starts to break down)
Once the fat starts to break down, add the onions and potatoes and let the potatoes fry a bit in the fat.

Add turmeric, half the green chillies and mix well.

Then, add the meat and fry on a low flame till well cooked.

When almost done, add the other half of the green chillies.

Dry it completely and let the meat crisp up a bit.
Serve hot with rice and dhal.

Kim's Note:
If there is any meat leftover, reheat it with some water, it will form a thick curry and garnish with coriander leaves and serve with rice or rotis.

Served here with Kabuli Channa Pulao and Raita

Recipe : Gia's Choriz Pulao - Goan Sausage Pulao

I LOVE Choriz Pulao. The best ones I have ever had, are at O'Coqueiro and Martin's Corner in Goa. Every trip to Goa by me or my family would mean a nice little haul of Goan Sausages to be relished at home.

Goan sausages also called Choriz are an Indianised version of the Spanish Chorizo. This version involves drying and smoking pork chunks with Indian spices and vinegar.

My nana used to just sun dry them and store the sun dried pork in a bottle to be used when needed. She used to call in "lingis". Unfortunately, this is one of the recipes of hers that I never recorded, because at that time, I felt it was too laborious and she was always around to send me a bottle to fulfill my cravings.

Crescentia Fernandes and her husband Chris run a lovely Goan restaurant in Gurgaon called Bernardo's. Chowder Singh has recorded Crescentia's recipe and taken a video of the process, which is of immense help if you decide to make these sausages from scratch. Check the recipe and video - here.



Since my sausages are always store bought (even though I do occasionally find some excellent home made ones in the market), taste and quality tend to be iffy. Until you open a packet and start cooking with it, you really don't know what its going to taste like. Its quite a task to find a version whose salt, spice, vinegar, meat + fat balance you enjoy. Joao's is most consistent, otherwise its mostly hit and miss.

Now, while I have loved the Choriz Pulao, I've never been able to successfully replicate it. So I normally end up making a sausage and potato stirfry which is excellent as a starter or with pao bread or rice and dhal.

However, recently Gia Claudette Fernandes (I don't think she is directly related to Crescentia) shared her recipe for Choriz Pulao on one of my favourite foodie groups on facebook - Porkaholics!, so I couldn't wait to try it out.

Gia's recipe is extremely precise and I would recommend you following it. I am an eyeballing cook. Plus what I had was the rosary sausages (home made ones), so I really eye balled it.

I love using the sausage skins, so I fried them up first before adding the onions to crisp them up. I cooked it in a pan with a well fitted lid, but you can also use a pressure cooker.

Gia's recipe follows in her own words:

Gia Claudette Fernandes - Goan Sausage (Choriz) Pulao

Ingredients:
3 cups of basmati rice, washed and soaked in a lot of water for at least 30 mins
6 cups of hot water
1 packet of Goan sausage (500 gms)
4-5 large onions, thinly sliced

Method:

 
Put the raw onions into a non-stick or heavy-bottomed vessel. Tear open the sausage skins and remove the meat. Add this to the onions, separating the pieces with your fingers as you do this.

Put the pot/pan on high heat and mix the onions and sausage meat well. Do not add any extra oil, please! Toss continuously until the fat starts to melt and the onions get nicely fried in the oil. Do this for at least 10 to 15 mins until the onions become soft. Control the heat and reduce the flame when it gets too hot. You don’t want to burn the mixture.

When the sausages and onions are fried and the oil starts to separate, it’s time to add the rice. Drain away the water it was soaked in and add the rice. Mix well with the sausage-onion mix. Fry for 2-3 mins. Now pour in the hot water and stir. Check for seasoning, if you need more salt, add it. I like to add 1-2 Maggi stock cubes at this stage (veg or chicken). This adds extra flavour and balances the heat from the sausages. If you’re using the stock cubes, it’s a good idea to first dissolve them in the hot water that you’re supposed to add to the rice.

When it comes to a boil, turn the heat to sim and cook with the lid on for 8-10 mins (depending on your rice). Try and place a heavy object on the lid so that the steam doesn’t escape. After 8-10 mins, turn it off and don’t open for at least 10-15 mins.

Before serving, lightly fluff with a rice fork so that the grains do not get stuck.

You can also reserve some of the sausages and fry separately. Then mix into the pulao just before serving.

This is best had by itself when it’s piping hot. I still haven’t found anything that complements this dish well, except for chilled beer!

Bon Apetite!

The result was perfect, I used the soup cube and it helped tone down the sharpest flavours of the choriz. The husband doesn't normally like choriz too much, he finds the flavours too strong, especially the home made ones. But he loved this pulao.

Thanks a ton Gia!

Recipe : Bacon Wrapped Roast Chicken

For Christmas this year, I wanted to make a special roast. I'd seen a picture of a Bacon Wrapped Roast Chicken somewhere on the web and thought it was a great idea, especially since everything tastes "Better with Bacon". The picture I saw, didn't have a recipe, so I just decided to upgrade my Roast Chicken with Duxelles

Ingredients:
1 roasting chicken with skin - around 1kg
1 quantity duxelles (from 400gm mushrooms) at room temperature
1 tsp salt
juice of 1 lime
200 gm packet of bacon (with some fat at least)

Method:
Clean the chicken well, especially the inside and dry
Rub the chicken with a mixture of lemon juice and salt, both inside and outside and keep for 10-15 minutes.
Stuff the chicken with the duxelles and if you can get the skin loose, pack some duxelles between the skin and the flesh.
(My butcher here in Ahmedabad, ends up tearing the skin when he de-feathers the chicken and unless I clean my chicken myself, I have to make do with what I'm given)

Note: When making the duxelles for this dish, I added some finely chopped bacon to the mix too.

Wrap the chicken with bacon slices, in any pattern you choose. I tried the checkerboard pattern to try and match the picture that I had seen, but since the bacon I bought wasn't in straight lines, it doesn't look as neat as the original picture I had seen.

I also used 2 extra legs in the dish, so there would be enough thighs and drumsticks to go around the table.

The chicken does not need basting, because the fat from the bacon will keep it nice and moist.

Roast in a preheated oven at 200C for about an hour and a half.
Keep an eye on the chicken as it roasts and increase or decrease the time as needed.

You can serve your chicken completely cooked but moist, or slightly crispy. We liked the bacon slightly crisped up.

Serve hot with a herby Italian bread or a simple pasta.

Variation :
1/2 kg boneless chicken breasts
4 tbsps cream cheese
1/2 tsp black pepper freshly crushed
1 tsp mixed herbs
6 slices bacon
salt to taste

Method:
Flatten & then marinate the chicken for 15 minutes in salt and pepper.
Fold the herbs into the cream cheese.
Layer an oven proof bowl with the chicken, the cream cheese and the bacon on top.
Bake in a preheated oven at 200C for about 45 minutes..

Recipe : Shan Masala Pork Chops

As you can see from the last few recipes, I've been busy, so I'm looking for fast cooking options. Pre-mixed masalas are of course a great way to help speed up the cooking process and the best thing with marinating meat is that once its all in the fridge, I just have to decide an hour before, what we want to eat and let it come to room temperature before I cook it.

I used the Shan Fried Chops/Steak masala for this dish. But although the recommended proportion was one packet mix to 2 kilos of meat, I used it all up on 1 kilo meat (it wasn't too spicy for us) and maybe next time, I would add some ginger and garlic paste to the marinade too. the vinegar wasn't part of the instructions, but more of a gut feel and I think it helped tenderise the meat and added flavour.

The taste is good and I think it will be great on fried fish too.

Ingredients :
1 kilo pork / lamb chops cleaned and dry
1 packet Shan Fried Chops/Steak masala
4 tbsps vinegar - I used Goan toddy vinegar
1/2 tsp oil

Method :
Marinate the chops in the masala mix and vinegar, at least overnight.
If you like thin chops, then pound and flatten them before marination.
Let them come to room temperature before cooking.

Warm the oil in a wide pan. Sear both the sides and then cooked either covered or uncovered until done depending on your preference for juicy or crispy chops.

These can also be cooked on a grill or a Barbecue.

Recipe : Pork Stir Fry with Chilli Coconut Shot (Blue Dragon)

Rushina sent me a food basket, a little while ago. Personally, I rarely pick up ready mixes other than masala powders and the occasional MTR breakfast mixes, so this was the first time that I actually looked at the Blue Dragon ready mix sauce range as they were a part of this basket.

I'd been busy the whole day and I'd left a small packet of pork out to defrost, but had no energy for a whole lot of chopping and stirring, so I dug out these sauces from my pantry cupboard and decided to try the Chilli Coconut shot mix.

From experience, I would recommend boiling the pork before stir frying it, so that it is tender.

Ingredients:

150-200 gms boiled pork/chicken - cut in long thin strips
1 packet (140gm pouch) Blue Dragon's Chilli Coconut shot mix
200 gms chopped veggies of your choice - baby corn, capsicum, beans, carrots, broccoli, mushrooms, asparagus
6-8 cloves garlic chopped fine
2-4 green chillies - slit (for extra spice - optional)
1/2 tsp oil
250 gms rice/noodles cooked (to serve on the side or mix in and fry)

Method:
Heat the oil in a wok and brown the garlic in it.
Add the meat and cook till done.
Add the vegetables one by one (in order of cooking times) and stir fry on high heat until almost cooked.
Add the green chillies if using and give a quick stir.

Add the Blue Dragon's Chilli Coconut shot mix and cook till done.
Serve hot with a side of rice or noodles.
If you prefer you can add the cooked rice/noodles to the pan and stir fry for a little longer for a one dish meal.

Options:
You can serve the Stir fry over cooked rice/noodles, or chop the meat and vegetables smaller and mix & fry the rice/noodles in the pan itself at the end, for an interesting fried rice/noodle dish.

The recipe will work just as well with chicken or even as a vegetarian dish, without any meat.

A word of warning however, the Chilli Coconut shot mix has fish sauce in it, so its not pure vegetarian.

Review: 
Blue Dragon's Chilli Coconut shot mix was quite tasty but not spicy enough for our taste, so I had to add more chillies when cooking. Other than that it was a lovely balance of flavours and did not taste like it came out of a packet.