The title of this post is a bit of an oxymoron to me. Pork Sorpotel – well, in my world (and most people I know as well) sorpotel IS pork! It cannot be made of anything else – ever! But for the sake of simplifying things, it’s usually referred to as Pork Sorpotel (outside of Goa that is)
image © sausagesandsamosas
Well, anyway – I love pork in only three forms; Goa sausages (duh!), bacon and this – Sorpotel. I do not enjoy vindaloo or roast or ham or any of the other versions of it. I’ll eat it but I won’t crave it.
Sorpotel has been a long time ‘must learn how to make it’ dish on my list. Growing up, mum rarely made it. It was time consuming (working mum, three kids and a dog, no helper, long commutes etc etc) and the ingredients were always a bit hazy (do we really need all that liver/organ meant in it? what about the blood? where do we get it from and honestly – is it even required?) So we used to consume copious amounts on our annual Goa holidays and whenever we were at weddings/baptisms/communions/parties that had catholic aunties cooking amazing food :-)/church fetes and buy tons of it at Bandra fair and the likes. And then I moved out of India and was stuck.
After looking online (my mum doesn’t do recipes) at endless pictures of how it should look, I finally found one that works – it’s the closet thing I’ve come to to the tastes of my childhood. This is the website and it’s brilliant!
Ingredients:
1 kg Pork belly (or leaner meat if you prefer but where’s the fun in that?)
300gms liver (I skipped this. No liver for me)
4 large onions finely chopped
1 ½ tablespoon Vinegar (Used rice vinegar but I’ve heard coconut is the way to go)
Small ball of tamarind soaked in warm water
1 ½ inch black jaggery (scraped)
2 slit green chilies
Oil as required
The Ground Masala
14 – 16 Kashmiri chilies (I used the red chilli paste that you get here in stores – it’s a chinese brand and it worked very well for me – about 3-4 tbsp)
20 cloves of garlic
1 inch ginger
18-20 cloves
26-28 peppercorns
2 cardamom
¾ teaspoon Cumin
2 inch cinnamon stick
¾ teaspoon turmeric
** Grind the above masala with vinegar to a paste (5 tablespoon).
Pre – Preparation:
1. Cut the pork into two pieces. (I used pre-cut meat so it was already cubed – super time saver!)
2. Boil the pork and liver with salt, 1½ inch ginger crushed and ½ teaspoon turmeric.
3. Boiling takes about 30/40 minutes (make sure you have enough water in the pot).
4. Remove the meat in a tray and cool. Save the stock for later use.
Fry the meat pieces till they get braised on all side, in 1 teaspoon oil as the pork will release its own fat.
7. Use 2 tablespoon of fat to fry the liver and discard excess fat or if you like more fat in your sorpotel then you could use the excess fat while frying the onions.
*** Fry the meat and liver separately.
*** If you are using lean meat no need to add ginger and turmeric while boiling , Just salt.
Preparation:
1. Take a pot and sauté the onions till they turn translucent.
2. Now add the ground masala and cook for 1 min.
3. Add the pork stock (400ml), jaggery, 3 tablespoon tamarind water and vinegar.
4. As the gravy comes to a boil, add the meat and liver pieces.
5. Add little water or stock to adjust the consistency of the gravy.
6. Add two slit chilies and salt if required and cook till the sorpotel is done.
This recipe has been taken from this blog – Delicious Memories with Alves Fernandes and it’s a keeper! Thank you.
Sausages and Samosas 