Pork curry with almond sauce アーモンドソースポークカレー

 We like to roast pork in our Weber but because of Covid, the cuts we usually use for roasting are not always available and we have had to make do with whatever we can get. Case-in-point, we recently got a bone-in shoulder pork roast. This cut was very large. In addition, it contained a portion of the scapula bone which I removed requiring some further “at home” butchery to get the various sizes and portions that we wanted. In this case I removed the bone and divided the roast into three segments. The first segment was the meat around where the bone was removed. I cut it into small chunks for stew or curry. The remaining two segments consisted of a smaller portion of roast which I used for “ni-buta” 煮豚 or simmered pork and a larger portion of roast which I barbecued in our Weber. 

I commissioned my wife to come up with a dish using the small chunks and suggested a curry. This time, my wife wanted to make a new curry she had not tried before. She chose one from Madhur Jaffrey’s cookbook “Indian Cooking. In addition to using quite a few spices (#1 & #2 below), it also includes pulverized almonds which is something we have not used before. The resulting curry is shown in the picture below. It was a lunch one day. I served the curry over rice with tomato (Skinned Campari tomato), blanched sugar snaps and broccoli which I warmed up in the curry while the curry was being heated.

I also served Japanese pickles which traditionally accompany Japanese curry. The red on the left is “Fukushin-zuke” 福神漬け (people from Hokkaido call it “Fukushin-zuke”a but the rest of Japan will call in “Fukujin-zuke” (a mixture of daikon, lotus root, egg plant and cucumber, soy sauce flavored) and the white objects on the right are “rakkyo” らっきょう (pickled small onions).

Ingredients:
2 garlic cloves
1 inch sized ginger cube coarsely chopped
5 Tbs. slivered almonds, roasted
3/4 to 1 cup of chicken stock
2 lbs. of pork shoulder cubes
1/2 tsp. cardamom
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. cloves

2 medium onions finely chopped

1 tsp. ground coriander

2 tsp. ground cumin
1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper
1 1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. garam masala

Directions:

Put the garlic, ginger, almonds and 6 Tbs. chicken stock in a blender (we used an immersion blender) and blend until you have a paste (#3).

Add several tablespoons of peanut oil into wide frying pan. Add the cardamom, cinnamon and cloves and cook until they “bloom” becoming fragrant. Put in the onions and cook until lightly browned (#4). Put in the almond paste as well as the coriander, cumin and cayenne pepper (#5). Stir until it browns slightly. Add the meat the salt as well the chicken stock (#6). Cover and cook on simmer for several hours until the meat gets tender. Add the garam masala before serving.

Just a Note: The meat did not get tender in the sauce even after several hours so I removed it and put it in a sauce pan covering it with chicken stock. I simmered it that way for about an hour. It got nicely tender and made additional sauce in the chicken stock. I added the meat back and sauce into the curry and it was much better.

This was very good. We've never had anything like this before. It had plenty of depth of flavor but was not too (spicy) hot. The almonds gave it a creamy texture and added a note of nuttiness that was very nice.  The additional veggies I put in as it was being heated up added some bright notes of freshness as well as additional flavors. It made a great lunch.

Pickled grapes with Japanese style curry ブドウのピクルス添え日本風カレー

In order to use up some cooked pork tenderloin before it went bad I decided to make a Japanese style curry but I did not have any commercial Japanese style curry roux. So I "winged it" and made my own curry roux. In addition I also didn't have the usual Japanese curry condiments, so continuing the "winged-it" theme I made "pickled" grapes and served them on the side.

The pickled grapes have a sweet-sour taste with cardamon flavor which really made the whole thing special.

To make the dish a bit more decadent, I topped the curry with a sunny side up fried egg (using pasteurized egg).

Pickled fruit (This is from Milkstreet magazine).


Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups rice vinegar (unseasoned)
3/4 cup white sugar
1 tbs kosher salt
6 wide strips of lime zest plus 1 1/2 tsp lime juice
4 wide strips of lemon zest plus 1/4 cup of lemon juice
3 white cardamon pods

Directions:
I did not have any lime so I did not use it. Put everything in a pan and heat to boil and dissolve the sugar and salt. Cool it to room temperature.  I only added grapes but  the original recipe also suggested the following fruits could also be pickled; apple, melon, pineapple, plum, and strawberry. Leave the mixture at room temperature  for 48 hours then refrigerate.

Japanese curry (my short cut method, makes about 4 small servings)


Ingredients:
Cooked pork, cubed (whatever amount you have, this is leftover control).
1 medium onion, small dice
1 clove garlic, finely minced
1 small piece of ginger root, peeled and finely minced
2 parsnips, peeled and cut into bite-sized cubes (or more traditionally potato)
2 medium carrots, peeled and cut into cubes
10 green beans (I happened to have blanched green beans), cut into 1 inch segments
1/4 cup of AP flour
2-3 tbs olive oil
2 tsp Garam Masara
Salt to taste
2-3 tsp Japanese curry powder (I used S&B)
2 cups chicken stock (or more depending on the thickness of the curry)

Directions:
In a pot on medium flame, add the olive oil, onion, garlic and ginger and sauté until fragrant and onion slightly caramelizes (5-7 minutes). Add the flour and sauté until the bottom of the pan develops a brown crust, add the curry powder and keep sautéing for several more minutes. Add the chicken broth and using a silicon or wooden spatula, mix well trying to dislodge the brown crust on the bottom until, the sauce thickens. Add the pork, carrot, parsnip and simmer (This is usually cooked in a broth, before adding the curry roux, I am taking a shortcut). Simmer for 30 minutes until the vegetables are soft. Just 4-5 minutes before serving, add the garam masala, season with salt and pepper and add the green beans.

To make it more luscious, I topped this with a sunny side up fried egg with runny yolk (using pasteurized eggs). For a quick shortcut curry for leftover control, this was pretty good. The pickled grapes also added, a sweet and sour tang with a subtle but lovely cardamon flavor which really made the pickles something special.

Butter Chicken バターチキン

Recently "butter chicken" was the theme for a cooking competition about Indian cuisine on the Netflix series called "Last table". We are not familiar with this dish and have never tasted it. So a few days later when my wife saw a recipe for butter chicken in the Washington Post  she decided to try it. But the recipe called for an herb call "fenugreek". The article even said that it was the fenugreek that gave the dish its distinctive flavor i.e. it wouldn't be butter chicken if it did not include this herb. Naturally we did not have fenugreek. So I promptly ordered some through Amazon. When this herb arrived, my wife made this "butter chicken". We had this dish with a baguette to mop up the sauce.

The green is the fenugreek leaves. It did have a particularly distinctive smell but in the sauce, its flavor appears very subtle.

This is based on the recipe from Washington Post but has been modified.

Ingredients:
FOR THE CHICKEN
4 chicken thighs (trimmed of excess fat), cut into 1 1/2-inch chunks
fresh lime juice (from 2 limes)
1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper (or more to taste).
3/4 teaspoon sweet paprika
2 teaspoons garam masala (spice blend)
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/4 cup plain, full-fat yogurt
2 cloves garlic minced
One 2-inch piece peeled fresh ginger root, minced (1 tablespoon)

FOR THE SAUCE
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
15 ounces canned plain tomato sauce
1/4 cup dried fenugreek leaves, soaked in a bowl of water for 15 minutes and skimmed off the top.
1/8 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper.
1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 cup heavy cream (we used much less)
1 teaspoon ground cumin

Directions:
1. For the chicken: Combine the chicken pieces with the lime juice, cayenne pepper, paprika, garam masala, salt, yogurt, garlic and ginger in a mixing bowl until evenly coated. Cover and marinate in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes, and up to overnight.
2. Take the chicken pieces out of the marinade and put into a frying pan with some peanut oil (there will still be marinade on the pieces). Cook stirring occasionally until the pieces are tender. Remove the chicken from the liquid that forms in the pan and discard the liquid.
3. In a clean frying pan melt 3 tablespoons of the butter over medium heat. As soon as it melts (without browning), pour in the tomato sauce. Stir in the fenugreek leaves, cayenne pepper, sugar and salt. Increase the heat to medium-high; cook just long enough so the sauce begins to bubble. Reduce the heat to medium-low, partially cover and cook for 12 to 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
4. Put the chicken pieces into the sauce, along with any accumulated juices. Stir in the cream and cumin, then cover and cook for 6 to 8 minutes, stirring occasionally, so the chicken absorbs some of the rich flavors in the sauce.
5. Uncover the pan and add the remaining tablespoon of butter; once it has melted, stir it into the sauce. Serve right away.

Although my wife cut the cayenne pepper in half from what was specified in the original recipe, it was still plenty spicy for us. She added some yogurt to "turn down" the heat in her serving but for me, it was just right amount of heat without yogurt. We are not entirely sure the fenugreek really added any particular flavor but this was a good curry dish. The chicken was very tender and flavorful due to the marinade.

Indian-style pork "Vindaloo" curry with pickles インド風ポークカレー

I asked my wife to make this curry from leftover barbecued pork butt since it was getting to the end of it's life. This is my wife's version of pork "Vindaloo" which we posted few years ago. Instead of using uncooked pork, she used barbecued pork cut into cubes this time. Since I used dry rub (roasted cumin, smoked paprika, salt and pepper) for the barbecue, these spices were automatically added to the curry.

She added roasted mustard seeds, you can see the seeds in the curry which gave small pops and bursts of mustard  flavor. Instead of coconut milk, she used yogurt (since we do not particularly fond of the taste and flavor of coconut milk), it broke a bit but still tasted good. Despite the addition of yogurt and reduce cayenne pepper to 1/4 of the lower end of the amount suggested in the original recipe (about 1/4 tsp), this curry was hot enough for us. Despite using cooked pork, it was tender and quite enjoyable. This is another way for taking care of leftovers.

Since I had a fresh green and yellow zucchini (really yellow zucchini not yellow squash), I added panfried coins of zucchini seasoned with salt and pepper, grilled fig with balsamic vinegar. In addition, I added pickled cucumber and carrot I made.

I just used the sweet vinegar I used to make pickled myouga since we used up the pickled myouga from this container. I placed cucumber (American minicucu), carrot and skinned Campari tomato into the leftover sweet vinegar. I let it pickel for several days in the refrigerator.

We decide to have a store bought mini baguette (which was partially baked and frozen). I  finished baking in 350F toaster oven in convection mode for 15 minutes. This went well with the curry. Next time, we will make naan, though.

Scallop curry in a pouch レトルト帆立カレー

Japanese are quite fond of curry. It was said the original Japanese curry was first served on Japanese Navy ships and is based on English modifications to Indian curry. Now, in Japan, many curry restaurants have proliferated including ones serving very authentic regional curries such as those in India, Thailand, and Nepal in addition to Japanese style curry. Japanese have three choices if they want to eat curry at home; 1. make it from scratch using authentic methods and spices, 2. Use commercial "curry roux" which is readly available and 3. or heat up Curry-in-a-pouch which is called "retoruto-kare" レトルトカレー.  Food-in-a-pouch or "retort pouch" / "retortable pouch" was initially developed by the US military to replace canned or bottled food, reduce the weight and waste and also to make a meal-ready-to-eat (MRE) that could be heated quickly. It was also used during space travel. In the US, food-in-a-retort pouch did not become very popular among the general populace, perhaps, because of the widespread use of frozen food. But, in Japan,  curry-in-a-pouch has been extremely popular. One servings of curry comes in a pouch and the price ranges for $1 to $10 encompassing mass-produced cheap varieties to high-end varieties with a restaurant's or hotel's name attached to it. In recent years, another category of curry-in-pouch called "gotouchi kare" ご当地カレー is getting popular. There are even specialized websites from which you can buy quite interesting varieties of "locale-specific" or "Gotouchi" curry. We recently ate one such example which was sent to us as part of my mother's New Year "care" package. This one was scallop curry from Hokkaido. I added shrimp, blanched green beans and broccoli. Of course, I also served Japanese curry condiments "rakyo" ラッキョウ and "fukishin-zuke" 福神漬け.

The curry contained a goodly number of scallops which were nice and tender but I am not sure it added anything substantial to the curry. The curry roux was moderately hot and had nice flavors and texture. My wife added yogurt to dampen the heat (and also because she just likes yogurt in her curry.)

This seafood curry in a pouch came from "Sato suisan" 佐藤水産 or Sato seafood in Sapporo.  I found out that, beside selling Hokkaido seafood products, this company also runs seafood restaurants with one located near the opening of Ishikari river 石狩川 called "Old River" restaurant. This curry is supposedly from this restaurant using fresh Hokkaido vegetables and seafood (two varieties of seafood curry are available;  scallop 帆立 or sea whelk  ツブ) without animal fat or meat.

As per the directions on the back of he package, I boiled the pouch in water for 5 minutes. They also recommend adding cooked (sautéed in butter) vegetables.

I thawed uncooked shell-on shrimp, cleaned and sautéed them in butter with blanched green beans and broccoli seasoned with salt and pepper.

We shared one pouch between the two of us and put it over rice  (pre-cooked frozen rice microwaved to thaw). The scallop was tender and the roux had nice heat, texture, and flavors albeit not particularly special. (My wife thought it tasted very similar to the curry I make with Japanese curry roux, although this curry doesn't include any animal products but the roux does). Certainly this is a very convenient  way to  enjoy curry at home.

My mothers package also included the "whelk" curry in-a-pouch which tasted very similar to the scallop curry but with the inclusion of "rubber tire" chewy whelk. My wife "graciously" passed all the welk she could find in her dish to me--even the one she had been unsuccessfully chewing on for awhile.