Pork Adobo

Adobo is a popular Filipino dish, it is considered by many to be the national dish of the Philippines. Pork and chicken are combined to cook adobo, or you can cook them separately too though I have always cooked adobo with pork without adding chicken. It is cooked differently across various regions, but the basic ingredients remain the same, i.e. soy sauce, vinegar, garlic, peppercorn and bay leaves. There are different versions that add either red chillies, brown sugar, potatoes, coconut milk etc, but that varies based on personal tastes, preferences and regions.

I have adapted the recipe to suit our tastes, but I learnt the recipe originally from Aate Rhea, who was my cook at one point. It tastes best with hot rice and steamed vegetables.

Recipe credit : Aate Rhea

Ingredients:

1. Pork - 1/2 kg (2 inch cubes)
2. Garlic - 6 flakes
3. Crushed peppercorn - 1/2 tsp
4. Bay leaves - 2 nos
5. Dry red chilly - 2 , roughly ton
6. Soy sauce - 1/4 cup
7. Vinegar - 2 tbsp
8. Coconut milk - 200 ml
9. Oil - 2 tsp

Method:

1. Heat oil in a pan, add the chopped garlic and fry for a minute. Add the pork cubes, and fry till they are browned.
2. Add all ingredients except coconut milk and cook till the pork is almost done.
3. Add the coconut milk and cook till the pork is done.

Note : Aate Rhea's recipe

No coconut milk, red chilly and oil is used
Combine all ingredients in a pan and cook till done.

Pork roast - Goan style

This is one of my favorite pork recipes. It's a precious gem from my mum in laws kitchen. This recipe has very basic whole spices combined with ginger and garlic. The only thing that you may not find in your pantry is cashew fenny. My mum in law believes that it adds a unique flavor to the dish, and if you have access to it , you must use it in this recipe.

Recipe credit : Rozita Coutinho (Alex's mum)

Ingredients:

1. Pork - 1 kg chunk
2. Garlic - 8 big cloves
3. Ginger - 1 and half inch piece
4. Turmeric powder - 1 tsp
5. Peppercorns - 25 nos
6. Cardamoms - 6 nos
7. Cinnamon - 2 inch sticks. 
8. Cloves - 10 nos
9. Vinegar - 2 to 3 tbsp
10. Cashew fenny - 1 tsp 
11. Salt as required

Method:

1. Wash and cut the meat into four large chunks. Drain excess water.
2. Dry grind the spices into a coarse powder.
3. Make a paste of the ginger and garlic using vinegar. 
4. In a pan, marinate the pork with salt, spices, cashew fenny and the ginger garlic paste.
5. Marinate for 6 to 8 hours or over-night. Refrigerate the marinated pork.
6. Let the meat come to room temperature before cooking it on slow flame. Depending on how tender or tough the meat is, adjust the cooking time.
7. Put the same pan on the stove and cook till 3/4th done.
8. Remove the pieces onto a plate and cut 1/4 inch slices and put it back in the pan to cook completely. This ensures the slices don't curl while cooking.
9. Check for seasoning and serve with pulao or in sandwiches.
10. In case, you don't have cashew fenny, you may skip it. But I'm told the fenny enhances the flavor. 

Pork chops - Oriental style

Pork is one of my favorite foods, and they come in so many different forms, who can say no to a lovely slice of ham in a sandwich, or bacon with some mashed potato and scrambled egg, or the super awesome Goa sausage with pulao. Well clearly I can't. But when it came to pork recipes, I stuck to the tried and tested traditional recipes like Pork bafad, Pork sorpotel, Pork solantulem, and Pork vindaloo.

But in the past few years, I have ventured into pork roast, pork curries, and stir frys. More on that later. The recipe  I share with you today is one of the many I've learnt from my mum-in-law. You must give it a go, and I promise you, you will love it.

Recipe credit: Rozita Coutinho (Alex's mum)

Ingredients:

1. Pork chops - 1 kg, washed and drained
2. Garlic - 2 tbsp, finely chopped
3. Celery - 2 big stalks
4. Green chilly - 1 no, sliced
5. Tomato ketchup - 2 tbsp
6. Honey - 1 tbsp (optional)

Marinade:

1. Salt
2. 2 tbsp ginger garlic paste
3. 3 tbsp of vinegar
4. 3 tbsp soy sauce
5. 3 tbsp red chilly sauce

Method:

1. Marinate the pork chops with the ingredients mentioned under marinade for minimum two hours. For better results marinate longer and refrigerate.
2. Cook the chops till done and set aside.
3. In a pan, heat oil, add the chopped garlic, celery and green chilly. Fry well, but do not brown.
4. Arrange the pork chops on the pan, in such a way that each piece touches the surface of the pan. Fry till each chop has a brownish coat on either side.
5. Add the remaining marinade, and ketchup. Bring to a boil.
6. Lastly drizzle the honey. Check for seasoning and consistency.

Pork Solantulem

Pork is a personal favorite of mine. I usually cook pork bafad, special occasions call for sorpotel, and I prepare pork solantulem when I'm in a hurry and don't have the time and patience to cook an elaborate dish. This is one of the easiest, fuss free pork recipes I know. This is a Goan dish, however, surprisingly I never heard of it till I got married. I have lived in Goa for a few years and have visited it quite often after I moved back to Mumbai. I have never seen this dish on any menu in any restaurant, nor have I heard any locals mention it ever. I think the sorpotel, vindaloo and choris take all the limelight and this humble recipe never made it to the stage.

But my mum-in-law makes this preparation once in a while and I learnt it from her many years ago. This dish is not spicy and I guess that's one of the reasons why it's not a party favorite. But I like this dish, not only 'cos of how easy it is to pull it together but 'cos it has very simple flavors. And of course 'cos it is David's favorite.

The original recipe has a handful of ingredients, viz; solam (kokum), garlic, cumin, salt and turmeric. But I add a few more spices to suit my palate. The star of this recipe is of course solam or kokum, which is absolutely essential, along with garlic and cumin. The other spices can be added or given a miss depending on convenience.

Ingredients:

1. Pork - 1 kg
2. Cumin - 1 tsp
3. Garlic - 8 fat cloves
4. Solam (Kokum) - 12 pieces
5. Turmeric - 1/2 tsp
6. Broken red chilies - 4 nos
7. Salt - as required

Additional ingredients:

1. Onion - 1 large
2. Cinnamon - 2 inch sticks
3. Cloves - 8 nos
4. Peppercorns - 1 tsp
5. Bay leaves - 2 nos

Method:

1. Add all the ingredients in a deep pan and keep on the stove on high flame. When it comes to a boil, reduce the flame and simmer for about twenty minutes or till the pork is done.
2. Stir occasionally to ensure it does not stick to the bottom.
3. Check for taste.
4. Any pork preparation, according to me tastes better after it has rested for a little while. At least one hour of rest will help the meat absorb all the spices and salt.

Pork Sorpotel (Goan style)

Today's post is truly special. I am posting the recipe of my most favoritest pork dish. SORPOTEL. I have eaten pork sorpotel for every Christmas for the last eight years. And of course on other special occasions too, like a wedding in the family, Easter and a loved one visiting after a long time. The credit for this recipe completely goes to my dearest mum in law (MIL). She laboriously cooked it year after year on every special occasion and she has been kind enough to share the exact details not only of the ingredients but the method too. She in fact made a smaller quantity once, no special occasion, just so that I could watch and learn. How great is that! I learnt to cook this about two years ago when my MIL was visiting her daughter in Dubai for Christmas and we would be without sorpotel. I took this opportunity to put my notes to good use and voila....

Just to give you a background, Sorpotel has portugese influence, and is made by the Goan, Manglorean and East Indian Christian communities. This dish is made in large quantities since it is mostly served on special occasions like weddings, birthdays and parties. The best part about this dish is that it can be cooked well in advance. In fact it tastes better, more pickled with each passing day. Each community makes it differently, for instance the Manglorean community cook sorpotel with the pork offals, and parts of the pig that are otherwise usually discarded. They also add pig blood to the preparation. I have never eaten this dish, as it is not available commercially. So unless you get invited to someone's house for a meal, where this dish is prepared and served, there is a slim chance of you getting to taste this. The East Indian community, on the other hand, has two versions of the sorpotel, one red preparation, where they  use their famous bottle masala and the green sorpotel, where they use whole ingredients i.e.without being ground. And finally the Goan community cook this dish with pork meat and pig liver. The method is mostly the same, where the meat is par-boiled and then chopped into tiny pieces and fried in its own fat, and after which the masala or sauce is prepared and the meat is added and allowed to soak in the spices. This dish best tastes a couple of days after it's made.

So brace yourselves for some hard work, and no shame in asking for help, specially when it comes to chopping the meat. But you will love the dish and when you see your loved ones enjoy it, all the hard labor just seems worth it!

IMPORTANT NOTE :

• The ingredients in the recipe are for half kg meat only. Please adjust ingredients as per the quantity of meat you will cook.
• It is recommended that for every 1 kg of pork meat, add 1/2 kg pork liver. This combination tastes best. 
• Use pork belly for this dish, as the belly has the best distribution of meat, fat and skin.

The delicious fiery SORPOTEL!

Spice Mix:

1. Kashmiri Cilly - 5 nos
2. Cumin seeds - 1/2 tsp
3. Black peppercorns - 20 nos
4. Cinnamon - 1 inch stick
5. Cloves - 5
6. Cardamom - 2
7. Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
8. ***Vinegar - as required

Dry grind the above ingredients to a fine powder. Add vinegar last to make a paste. Use as much vinegar as needed but be careful as too much will make the dish too sour.

1) Pork meat and liver boiled
2) Chopped liver

1) Fried meat
2) Fried chopped ingredients

Ingredients for chopping:

1. Onion - 1 medium (finely chopped)
2. Garlic - 5 medium flakes (finely chopped) 
3. Ginger - 1/2 inch piece (finely chopped)
4. Green chilly - 1 no (finely chopped)

Method:

1. Wash the meat well. Place the whole chunk of meat in a sauce pan and add 1 cup of water. Let the meat cook for ten to fifteen minutes. 
2. Set the meat aside for cooling. Reserve the water. Cool the water and refrigerate.
3. Once the meat has cooled, cut the meat into quarter or half inch cubes. Keep the meat and liver pieces separate.
4. Heat a pan, pour little oil, fry the chopped meat first. Fry till it changes color. Use oil initially, later the pork will release its fat and you will not need to use oil. Fry the liver till it turns black. Note that the liver needs to be fried longer than the meat. Set aside the fried meat.
5. Heat a sauce pan, fry the onions till they turn golden brown, then add the remaining chopped ingredients. Fry well. 
6. Add the ground red masala and meat. Fry the masala well. 
7. Add the meat and liver, and salt, mix well. Put off the flame. Note: No cooking.
8. Let the meat marinate for four to six hours. 
9. After six hours, cook the meat with the reserved water, on slow flame for thirty minutes. 
10. Since the meat is to be consumed after a few days, don't refrigerate on the same day.
11. Refrigerate after two or three days.
12. During those two to three days when the meat is not refrigerated, heat the meat twice a day on the flame, preferably once in the morning and once at night. 

Pork Bafad

Pork is a favorite amongst the Christians; Goans, Mangaloreans or East Indians love their pork preparations with a gusto that one can say is borderline crazy. Cholestrol can go take a hike, we love our "dukramaas". There can't be any celebration that is complete without pork preparartion. Well "Pork bafad" is a Mangalorean pork preparartion that has its own place of honor. No roce, wedding, christmas, birthday (you get the drift ;-)) can be celebrated without pork bafad. Atleast that's how it is done in my family. Infact my husband is amazed at how much pork my family and I can gorge in one go ;-), he thinks we ought to get a prize just for that.

I'm sure others enjoy it too, but there are no definite statistics to prove that :-). There are many variations to the recipe I have share below. Some prefer too many onions - this adds to the gravy and make it a bit sweet. Others prefer too much spice. I've tried various recipes and this won the most votes in my family. So this recipe is a family recipe now. This recipe was printed in my parish bulletin and was shared by a senior citizen, whose name unfortunately I did not capture. But God bless her, its an awesome recipe and if you do try it and like it you know who to thank !

Ingredients:

1. Pork - 1 kg
2. Onions - 3 nos medium (Cubed)
3. Ginger - 1 inch (chopped finely)
4. Garlic - 1 pod (chopped finely)
5. Green chillies - 3 nos (slit)
6. Cloves - 6 nos
7. Cinnamon - 1 inch stick
8. Bay leaves - 2 -3 nos
9. Vinegar - to taste
10. Salt - to taste

The below ingredients to be ground:

1. Kashmiri chillies - 15 nos
2. Peppercorns - 10 nos
3. Coriander seeds - 1 tbsp
4. Cumin seeds - 1 tsp
5. Tamarind - 1/2 a lemon sized ball (soaked in warm water)

Grind the above using water.

Method:

1. Cut the pork into 1 inch cubes. Wash well and drain excess water.
2. In a pan large enough to hold all ingredients, put the pork, add the ground masala and all ingredients. Mix well and switch on the gas.
3. Use water to clean the mixie jar. Do not use any more water than that for the preparation.
4. Bring the meat to a boil, lower the flame and let it cook for 25 -30 minutes.
5. Continue cooking till dissolved fat appears on top or until the meat is tender. This could take anywhere between 45 mins to an hour.
6. Check for spice and salt.
7. Tastes best with Sannas or pau.

* Note: Pork tastes best when the preparation is allowed to rest atleast for a couple of hours, better still for a day.