Smothered pork スマザードポーク

Again we ended up with a bone-in cut of pork. This time, it appeared to be a "butt roast" instead of "shoulder roast" judging from the bone structure. In any case, I did more home butchering by removing the bones. I made one larger and one smaller roast (the large roast went for barbecue in our Weber grill and the small one for "nibuta" 煮豚 simmered pork). The prepared remaining smaller portions of meat around the bones were destined for a type of stew. I again tasked my wife to make something with the stew pork meat. She came up with this "smothered pork" dish based on a recipe from her favorite Indian cookbook by Madhur Jaffrey "Quick and Easy Indian Cooking". (She made alterations to the recipe based on various ingredients she had on hand). This was a lunch one weekend. We used frozen rice and added  snow peas and skinned Campari tomatoes. We defrosted the rice then microwaved the rice and smothered pork and vegetables in a bowl.

I also added pickled  Japanese “rakkyo” ラッキョウ small cocktail onion and Fukushinzuke 福神漬け.

This is really good. Lots of spices but no cayenne pepper but it had slow pleasant heat probably coming from fresh ginger. I will ask my wife to take over.

Ingredients:
About 1lb pork shoulder, cut into bit-size chunks
2 Tbs. catsup (or how every much you may want for taste). (This was a substitute for 2 Tbs. tomato paste)
2 onions roughly chopped
1 inch long piece of ginger finely chopped
3 garlic cloves finely chopped
1/2 tsp. turmeric
4 tsp. garam masala
2 tsp. cumin
3/4 tsp salt
4 compari tomatoes peeled

Directions:
For the pork:
The last time I made curry with this type of pork it was extremely tough. I ended up removing the pork from the curry and simmering it for 2 hours covered in chicken stock until it became very tender. I then added it back into the curry. This time I did the same thing but cooked the stew pork in the chicken stock before I made the curry sauce.

For the curry sauce:
Caramelize the catsup by stirring it in a frying pan until it turns brown in color. Add some peanut oil and the onions. Cook the onions until wilted. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant then add the ginger. Add the remaining spices and "bloom" them until they become fragrant. Then add the pork as well as the chicken stock in which it was simmered. Finally add the fresh tomatoes. Cover and cook for about 30 minutes to let all the flavors meld.

This was a very good curry. Plenty of flavor but just a pleasant mild heat that must have come from the ginger. The caramelized catsup added a slight hint of barbeque that was a nice addition. The pork was very tender and had absorbed the complex flavors from the curry sauce.