Colombo Pork Loin Curry

Sun 28 Oct 2007

Our trip to Germany last weekend meant that we're a week behind schedule with the sample recipe from the Observer Food Monthly. Today, Andy got to choose the recipe and cook it. He had wanted to make a curry during the week, but there had been no time, so it was no surprise when he chose the Colombo pork loin curry, from Babette de Rozières' new book, Creole.

If you've cut your curry making teeth on the long, slow curries of the subcontinent, this recipe is quite a change. It's more like a stirfry with plenty of vegetables and a curry sauce. This means it's quick to put together and, as the recipe includes a lot of spices, it's also very tasty.

Mix together a chopped onion, a few cloves of garlic, a pinch of ground cumin, salt and pepper, some white wine vinegar and some sunflower oil. Cut your pork loin into large chunks and marinade in this mixture for a couple of hours.

For the curry, heat some sunflower oil in a wok and, when hot, add the pieces of pork. Sear them on a high heat but do not let them brown. Dissolve a chicken stock cube in a litre of water, and pour over the pork. Add some thyme, parsley, a bay leaf, 2 whole cloves, a whole chilli and about a teaspoon and a half of jerk seasoning. de Rozières' recipe (which serves six, and we were only making for two) calls for 100g of Colombo powder. We could have made our own, but, it being a lazy Sunday, a shop bought alternative was more expedient. Cover the wok and cook at a vigorous boil for 15 minutes.

Add a chopped potato and a chopped courgette (de Rozières adds an aubergine too), before simmering for a further 25 minutes. When the meat is cooked, remove it from the sauce and keep it warm. Strain the sauce into a fresh pan, removing the herbs. Add a little cornflour mixed with a little water (to avoid lumps) and cook the sauce to thicken. Finally, add the juice of one lime and a dash of oil. Pour the sauce over the meat and serve.

The lime juice gives this a very fresh, tart flavour and the addition of unusual spices, like the thyme and clove, means that this tastes very different from other curries. It was quick to make and definitely hit the spot. If you want to surprise any curry lovers in your life, this is definitely the dish to serve!

tagged with: Babette de Rozières, creole, colombo, curry

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