Meal Two - Pork Balchao and Garlic Chilli Rice

Tonight was curry night. It might not be a curry you've heard of before though. Myself included until I found a cracking little book from The Works in Oswestry simply called, "150 Curries".

You don't traditionally see pork used in curries but this is a Goan dish and thus heavily influenced by three religions - Hinduism, Islam and Christianity. Therefore both pork and beef are present within the Goan cuisine.

I chose this dish as I had a couple of pork chops left over from last night. I decided to go the curry route as I generally have most of the ingredients to hand. The only thing I had to pop out for were a couple of dried chillies.

The photo in the recipe book didn't really sell the dish for me but the flavour turned out to be something else! Firstly it has plenty of my favourite ingredient - garlic but it's the chilli that steals the show in this dish. It's not overpowering at all, but gives your mouth a real glow. The red wine vinegar gives it a nice tang too - almost a chutney vibe but more subtle.

I served it with brown rice fused with more garlic and chilli.

To top the meal off, I served it with a chilled glass of Cobra beer.

Ingredients: 

 4 Pork Chops - cubed 
1 tbsp grated root ginger 
1 tbsp crushed garlic 1 tsp ground cinnamon 
2 dried red chillies, chopped 
1/2 tbsp mace 
2 tsp ground cumin 
10 black peppercorns 
1 tsp ground turmeric 
6 cups warm water 
2 tbsp sundried tomato puree 
1/2 tsp chilli powder 
1 large onion, finely sliced 
1 tsp salt 
1 tsp golden caster sugar 
2 tbsp red wine vinegar 

125g brown rice 
1/2 onion 
1 clove garlic 
1 tsp crushed chillies 
 2 tbsp vegetable oil