Pork Curry with Pickled Mango
Earlier this year, because I stayed with my father in Burma for so long my son seems to miss homemade Burmese food so much. One night, he showed up with his girl and they had dinner with the pork curry that I made. I noticed that her girl also love that curry flavored pork that I cooked.
In our country, we usually cook pork with either tomato or dried mango. But after moving to oversea, my mom in law showed me how to cook pork with pickled mango. We could probably cook pork in different way or style. But this particular dish is the one making us eat it tirelessly. For me, I always cook pork with the special typical pickled mango made with a very special curry powder which we use to buy at home.
The sweetness of that special mango makes the pork tastier and the curry flavor soaks into the meat to make a great fragrant-meat curry.
During my culinary school, I learned that one dish used mustard and gherkins to cook pork chop. It was tasty and flavorful, also an appetizing dish too. I realized that each country has its own way of cooking the same meat but different styles to meet customers' satisfaction. In Burmese dishes, pork dish may be cooked more than 10 varieties. The ones familiar to me include cooking pork with pickled tea leaves, pickled salted bamboo shoot, tomatoes, soy sauce, soybean, shitake mushroom, Roselle leaves and there are many more.
One does not know when one is going to leave this world. So I would like to leave this recipe for my son and my other friends as a future reference. By following a clear step by step method on how to cook this delicious pork curry.
Pork Curry with Dried Mango
Ingredients
1 lb Pork Shoulder meat skin on ( cut into bite-size cubes)
1 lb Pork Belly meat skin on ( cut into bite-size cubes)
1 cup Fine chopped onion
2 tbsp Ginger ( grated)
4 cloves Garlic Chopped
1 tbsp Chili Powder
1/2 tsp Turmeric powder
1 tbsp Fish sauce
1 tbsp Light soy sauce
3-4pieces Dried mango
1 tsp Gram Marsala or curry powder
2 Shallot ( cut into quarters)
2 tsp Salt
1/4 cups Canola oil
Instruction
1. Season the pork cubes with turmeric, salt, soy sauce ahead of time before preparing the onion, ginger, and garlic.
2. In the chopper, add all the cut onion, ginger, and garlic together with the chili powder.
3. In the 4 qt wide cooking pan or dutch oven, add pork from step 1 and add onion, ginger, garlic and chili mixture together with canola oil. Mix everything together with a spoon (or hand) to make sure all the ingredients are thoroughly mixed with the meat. Add a few tbsp (2-3 tbsp) of water.
4. On the stove top with medium-high heat, put the pot and cover. Stir the meat occasionally till all the water has evaporated and there is the hissing sound of oil. Make sure not to burn the meat and onion gravy.
5. Add 2-3 cups of water, enough to cover the meat, and cook with high heat for 10 minutes. Add the cut shallot and dried mango (or Indian styled pickled mango) when the water starts boiling turn down the heat to medium-low and let it simmer for 20 minutes. Please do not forget to stir the pot occasionally.
6. When the meat is tender, add the curry powder, stir a little and cover.
5. After 5 minutes of simmering, all the flavors should be blended with flavors. When the water is almost evaporated, it is ready to be served with Jasmine rice. This dish can be paired together with stir-fried mix vegetable or steamed vegetables.
