Olde time cooking and nostalgia

This weekend was simply perfect!

For one, there was no running around like a headless chicken trying to pack in everything into 2 meagre days simply because the sun decided to make a rare appearance; thereby prompting the hubby to insist we all run out and make the most of it!

Secondly, the stress and tension of the looting and riots of last weekend were fast fading into a bad nightmare, leaving us with just enough fodder for enthusiastic discussions on discipline and parenting, with random strangers while waiting at the butcher's or the Italian baker's.

And to top it all, ever since my cooking lady has started coming twice a week, I no longer have any more worries about attempting my hand at the more mundane rotis, the daals and the vegetables; which leaves me free to cook as I please over the weekends.

So this weekend, after all the culinary globe trotting with the Hungarian goulash and the Lebanese kebob & hummus and the Indonesian Balado of last week, I decided to go all faithful to my roots and cook all that I miss about my own land.

So the menu was an all Bong fare - Palong shaaker ghonto (vegetables with spinach leaves), cholar daal (chana dal), macher jhol (fish curry with vegetables). Sounds divine to any Bong but then I have a Madraasi hubby who cannot bear to eat spinach or vegetables and will eat mach only if its made into a jhal (fish cooked in a fiery mustard paste), which leaves me clutching a bottle of antacid for the rest of the weekend. So for the sake of my peace of mind as well as his, decided to make a Pork Vindaloo for him.

Pork Vindaloo

Vindaloo

This was not just any Vindaloo. I ate this for the first time as a newly wed bride, in the house of one of Vj's oldest family friends, about 11yrs back; and the taste still lingers on. Truth be told, I have never eaten any Vindaloo that has came close to theirs in taste!

I had then asked my hostess for the recipe and she very sweetly obliged. I tried to replicate it many times at home, with mutton not pork (I never could gather the courage to buy pork in India, I was always scared of contracting tapeworms) and it never turned out as good as the one I had eaten in Hyderabad. So after a few not very authentic attempts at replication, I just stuffed the recipe into one of my cooking journals and forgot all about it.

Then I found this very British butcher once I moved here to London. His meat is so good, that superlatives fail to do justice to it! He charges about twice the price the Indian and Pakistani butchers do, but it is sooooo worth it!!! So when I went to pick up some of his mindblowing home made sausages, I gathered up courage to buy some pork and attempt the Vindaloo all over again.

What you need is

1 kg pork

2 tsp Jeera/Cumin seeds

3 tsp Mustard

5-6 fat cloves of garlic

1 inch ginger

1big onion

Vinegar - I used about a little more than 1/2 cup (the vinegar shows up more the next day, so if you plan to make it and keep it, go easy on the vinegar)

Red chillies -15 (less if you don't like it spicy)

Chilli powder

Cardamom, cinnamon, clove, black pepper

Salt to taste

Make a paste of ginger, garlic, jeera, mustard, red chillies, salt, cardamom, cinnamon, clove and black pepper. Use vinegar instead of water to make the paste. Marinate the meat for atleast 8-10hrs in this paste.

Next day, heat a little oil  in the kadhai.

Add chopped onions and fry.

Take all out and make a purée.

Then fry the purée with a tsp of chilli powder.

Then add the marinated meat to this purée.

You can either cook in a pressure cooker or on slow flame if the meat is really good and tender. I had some really tender pork so chose to cook on a low flame. I also cheated and added red food colour to get a slightly redder colour to my gravy.

If you want to make this with mutton, you need to fry a tomato with the onion and make the purée. Also reduce the qty of vinegar.

Enjoy!