Rick Steins pork curry with green chillies

I love curry, and I’m a fan of Rick Stein, so his latest BBC series was high on my viewing agenda. This recipe is adapted from here. I’ve said lots of times before that curries are worth the effort to make, as they taste so completely unlike anything you get in a jar.

Curries are notoriously difficult to photograph, so please excuse the colouring in the one below. It really was great! 

Pork curry with green chillies and tomato

6 sliced shallots

a lot of crushed garlic. Rick used 20 (“Rick" like he’s a mate of mine… He’s not). 20 cloves goes beyond even my grà for the stuff. I used significantly less. In my defence  they were particularly fiddly to peel.

6cm of grated ginger

6 green chillies, roughly chopped, with or without seeds according to preference

1 tablespoon of black mustard seeds

1 teaspoon of cumin seeds

2 cloves

one cinnamon stick

½ teaspoon of black peppercorns

1 teaspoon of ground turmeric

2 tablespoons of vegetable oil

I used a pork fillet

I added a half of a large tin of tomato puree

Salt to taste

Rick uses coriander seeds, tamarind liquid, more chillies and even more garlic to garnish the finished dish. I didn’t. I didn’t even have any coriander.

Put the shallots, garlic, ginger and chillies into a mini food processor with a splash of water and blend to a rough paste.

Post-food processored shallots and garlic and ginger and chillies 

Fry the mustard seeds, cumin, cloves, cinnamon stick and peppercorns in a dry frying pan over a medium heat for a minute until toasted and aromatic. Add the turmeric and fry for another 20 seconds. Cool, then grind to a coarse powder.

The ground spices, mid grind

Heat the oil in a heavy-based frying over a medium-high heat. Add the pork, in batches if necessary to avoid overcrowding, and fry for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until browned.

With all the pork in the pan, add the shallot, garlic, ginger and chilli paste, the ground spices and salt, and fry for a further five minutes, adding a splash of water if the paste starts to stick. Pour over enough water to just cover, turn the heat down to low, put a lid on and simmer for about 30 minutes, or until the meat is tender. I added the half tin of tomato puree with the water as the sauce needed some thickening and some colour.

I serve this, like most of my weekend curries, with yellow onion rice – gently and slowly fry a chopped onion in some oil for about 20 minutes. It really does make a difference, as the onion is able to release its sweetness. While this is going on, cook for rice according to the pack instructions with a cinnamon stick, a couple of crushed cardamom pods and a half-teaspoon of ground turmeric. Once cooked, drain the rice and mix it through the cooked onion. You could also try some homemade naan bread if you're feeling up to it.