Monday, February 16, 2009

PORK BALCHAO


The perfect mixture. That is what Goa is. This is a dish with influences from very different worlds. Pork, vinegar, Indian spices: Goa.

Ingredients:

1 inch cinnamon stick
1-2 dried red chillies
3 cloves
2 teaspoons cumin seeds
4 green cardamom pods (without the pods)
8 black peppercorns
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tablespoon chopped fresh ginger
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
1 pound pork, cubed
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
½ cup warm water
1 small chopped tomato
1 teaspoon ground chilli powder
1 small chopped onion
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
2 tablespoons wine vinegar

Grind the cinnamon, red chillies, cloves, cumin seeds, cardamom pods and peppercorns in a mortar.
Heat half the oil in a wok and add the ginger and garlic. Fry them slightly for half a minute, then add the mortar mix and fry for another half a minute stirring constantly.
Then, add the pork and the turmeric and raise the heat a bit. Fry for five minutes stirring regularly.
Add the water, tomato, chilli powder and bring to a boil. Cover the wok and cook gently for 20 minutes. Stir from time to time.
In another pan, heat the other half of oil and fry the onion till it is golden, stirring regularly.
When the onion is almost done, add it to the wok with the pork. Add the salt, the sugar and the vinegar too. After stirring a bit, cover the wok and simmer till the pork is done.
It is possible to cook the balchao with more vegetables but I only would add some carrots, finely chopped.
Serve the pork balchao with some basmati rice, cooked separately.
It is a good idea to prepare this dish in advance. In fact, it tastes better if you eat it the following day. It is safe to keep it in the fridge for several days.

2 comments:

  1. Hi
    How well does this freeze?

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  2. Hi. As vinegar is an important ingredient in Pork Balchao, you can keep it in the fridge for five days or so. Vinegar will keep it safe and more and more delicious. But you can also freeze Pork Balchao. What I sometimes do is to freeze it and prepare the rice while I am reheating the dish. I would not recommend to freeze Pork Balchao with the rice. If you can, freeze it fast and thaw it slowly for better results.

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