Pork Curry

This is yet another dish which is great for weekday dinner parties as it can be prepared the night before and best of all, the flavor improves with keeping.

Ingredients

500g pork (go for streaky bits with marbling and meaty ribs if you want good flavor, but cheaper cuts for braising like pork shoulder works just as well too)cubed into 1.5 inch pieces.

Blend these into a paste. I usually blend the lemongrass separately as it is tougher than shallots and ginger

• 1 stick lemongrass (use only the white end near the roots and slice thinly crosswise to aid blending.
• 4 shallots
• 1 clove of garlic peeled, or several segments if you are using old garlic
• 1 inch knob of young ginger, peeled and sliced to aid blending

3 tsp good quality curry powder mixed with some water into a thick paste (I use a homemade blend courtesy of one of my patients

enough oil for frying
enough milk (or coconut milk if you don't mind the calories but I generally use Marigold high calcium low fat milk)

Dry spices:

• 1 star anise broken up
• 2 sticks cinnamon broken up
• 5-6 cloves

half a teaspoon of sugar

tofu puffs (tow pok)

3 medium potatos, washed peeled and cut into pieces slightly larger than the pork cubes

1 packed cupful of coriander (flat leaf parsley) washed and chopped up for more flavor and some more for garnishing. Reserve the roots (the most flavorful part in fact) for flavoring the curry.



Method:

Heat oil in a heavy based pan, fry blended ingredients till aromatic, add dry spices and stirfry till aromatic. Add curry paste (powder + water) , stir till evenly distributed.

Finally add pork. Now here's the tricky part. You need to ensure that the pan is hot before you add the pork. You need to sear the pork in the hot spice mix basically.

Keep stirring till all the pork pieces are all browned before you add milk for braising. Add enough milk to just cover the pork pieces, bring to a boil, cover and simmer under low fire for an hour.

Before covering and simmering, add half a teaspoon of sugar, some salt ( there's no need to add too much salt, you can adjust the seasoning later) , a cupful of chopped coriander stem and leaves, and reserved coriander roots.

After about 40 minutes, add peeled potatos, simmer another 10 minutes, add tofu puffs, simmer another 5 minutes.

Adjust the seasoning (salt and pepper)

To serve, garnish with chopped coriander.

If you're preparing this the night before to reheat on the day of the dinner (highly recommended as flavor really improves with keeping), simmer pork for just 30 minutes, add potatos and simmer just another 5 minutes, add tofu puffs, bring just to boil, adjust the seasoning and turn off the flame.

Let cool a little before ladling into a microwavable glass bowl and stuffing into the fridge. As you keep the curry overnight, the meat and potatos will tenderize further. And when you reheat the next day (just use a microwave) the texture will be perfect!