Sharon and the boys are in Ireland this week so I've been fending for myself. I'm no stranger to doing that but Sharon had taken all the good curry cookbooks with her so I had to trawl the web to find a variation on the Sri Lankan pork belly and tamarind curry that she recently cooked from the fabulous Australian Women's Weekly New Curries cookbook. I found something that was close and amended it to suit my circumstances.
The recipe recorded here is typical of my cooking: approximate measures of ingredients that should work together and occasionally do! This is about enough to serve 2 people. The original recipe I found suggested cooking potatoes in with it instead of aubergine and serving it on a bed of raw cabbage which could be an interesting exercise in texture and taste, but I've gone more for the traditional "serve it with rice" approach.
Pork belly isn't something you want to be eating too often as it is very fatty, but the upside of that is wonderfully moist pork meat when it is braised or roasted with the fatty rind helping to baste the meat throughout cooking. A favourite of ours is Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's roasted pork belly with caramelised apple and I've just spotted a recipe for braised pork belly with baby squid that has set my stomach rumbling.
Ingredients
400g pork belly (trim the fat a little if you must)
1 tbsp red Thai curry paste (Mae Ploy is my favourite)
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 onion, not too finely chopped
1 "thumb" of ginger, peeled and sliced into matchsticks
1 tbsp oil
1 tbsp palm sugar (or light brown sugar)
1 tbsp nam pla (Thai fish sauce)
1 medium aubergine, in 2cm dice
2 tbsp tamari soy sauce (tamari is the gluten-free version)
1 tbsp tamarind concentrate
Method
- Chop the pork belly into 2cm cubes and marinate in a bowl with the soy sauce for 20 minutes.
- Dissolve the tamarind paste in a mug of boiling water.
- In a large pan that you can cover, heat the oil, adding the garlic and ginger and curry paste as it is heating. Stir them around for a minute or so, taking care not to burn the garlic, then add the palm sugar.
- Add the pork and stir fry for about 2-3 mins until it takes some colour then add the fish sauce.
- Add the onion, aubergine and the mug of tamarind water. Bring to a simmer and cook uncovered for abbout 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Top up the curry with some boiling water at this stage if it looks too dry. You want a sauce of reasonable consistency, not too runny and not too dry.
- Cover the pan and continue cooking for another 15-20 minutes until the pork is meltingly tender and the aubergine has no bite left.
- Serve with boiled rice
Cost: 8/10 (pork belly is an economical cut)
Preparation time: 8/10
Ease of cooking: 7/10
Taste: 9/10
