These Mussamam Curry Pork Chops were made for the What’s In The Box challenge.
Take a look at this inspiring recipe for ♥ Mussamam Curry Pork Chops ♥ from Lavender and Lime #LavenderAndLime Share on X
One of my favourite TV shows has to be Chopped. Here, contestants are given a mystery box of ingredients in 3 rounds and they have to come up with a starter, main course and dessert. Four contestants start the first round and after each round, one contestant is chopped leaving a winner who walks away with $10 000. When I saw the March: What’s in the box challenge I decided to treat it like a main course challenge from Chopped, rather than a challenge to make a 3 course meal.
So, in Ted Allen’s voice “in the box you have, walnuts, rocket, figs, pork chops and baby potatoes and time starts now!” I could have gone for the obvious rocket salad, pork chops with baby potatoes and a fig and walnut dessert, but where is the challenge in that? And if the mug of destiny chose me, my one meal would have to be a stand out. Using inspiration from Masterchef Australia where the contestants had to fix a mussamam curry I set about making a Thai curry dish. Integral to Thai food is sweet, sour, salty and hot. Using these principles, and the ingredients given, I came up with a dish that was seriously tasty. It is a hot curry and you can soften the heat with a little bit of yoghurt.
do you eat hot curries?
Mussamam Curry Pork Chops
Ingredients
For the spices
- 3 dried red chillies
- 18.75 mls coriander seeds
- 10 mls cumin seeds
- 2 whole cloves
- ½ star anise
- 15 cardamom pods
- 2.5 mls ground cinnamon
For the paste
- 2 French shallots, peeled and roughly chopped
- 5 giant cloves garlic, peeled and roughly chopped
- 1 stalk lemongrass, sliced
- 18.75 mls galangal paste
- 1 pinch fine salt
For the curry
- 500 g pork loin chops, trimmed and meat taken off the bone and sliced into thick chunks
- 45 mls coconut oil
- 200 mls coconut milk
- 8 baby potatoes, quartered
- 125 mls vegetable stock
- 15 g palm sugar, grated
- 50 g walnuts, halved
- 10 mls fish sauce
- 5 mls tamarind paste
- 5 mls soy sauce
- 5 mls lime juice
- 100 g baby figs, halved
- 100 g rocket
- 1 lime, halved, to garnish
Method
For the spices
- Place the chillies, coriander, cumin, cloves and star anise into a dry frying pan
- Over a low heat, toast the spices until you can smell them
- Place them into a spice grinder
- Place the cardamom into the pan and toast them until the husks are hard
- Remove the seeds and add them to the spice grinder
- Place the cinnamon into the grinder and process until fine
- Pour through a sieve
- Set aside 1 tablespoon for the walnuts and the rest for the curry
For the paste
- Place all of the ingredients into a food processer and blend until smooth
For the curry
- Place 5mls coconut oil and the fat trimmings into a casserole pot / tagine
- Brown the pork and remove and set aside
- Remove the far pieces and discard
- Add the rest of the coconut oil and sauté the shallot paste until soft, but not coloured
- Add the spices and cook until you can smell them
- Add the bones, and cook until coloured
- Add the coconut milk and deglaze the pot
- Add the potatoes and the stock and simmer with the lid on until the potatoes are nearly done
- While the potatoes are cooking put the walnuts, the set aside spices and 5g of the palm sugar into a dry frying pan
- Roast over a low heat until the walnuts are toasted
- Add the rest of the palm sugar, the fish sauce, tamarind, soy and lime to the curry
- Add the pork and simmer with the lid off until the pork is cooked
- Add the figs and leave to heat through
- Remove the walnuts from the frying pan and wilt the rocket
- Serve the curry on a bed of the rocket, topped with the walnuts and half a lime
Click on the links for conversions and notes.
What I blogged:
- two years ago – Roasted Red Pepper and Roasted Tomato Soup
This sounds wonderful, Tandy, but way too hot for my taste buds. 🙂
It was a very hot curry indeed!
Very inspiring, but probably too hot for me. When it comes to curry, I fall closer to the wimp level. 🙂
me too!
Sounds fabulous.
🙂 Mandy xo
Dave said it was!
I love what you did with the “What’s in the box” ingredients. I don’t think any of the other bloggers thought of chopping up the chops. This curry sounds tasty 🙂
Thanks Tami, I really wanted to think outside of the box!
Mussaman curry is my absolute favourite. I love the balance of flavours and textures. It’s a very clever concept to put a twist on the original dish with the lovely ingredients you were sent.
thank you Claire, I was not sent the ingredients however, I just used what they had sent out to other bloggers to come up with this. If I make it again I will calm the heat a bit 🙂
Yum! Love the addition of figs to this
It was my Moroccan twist on the dish 🙂
I love chopped also…I feel like it really spurs those creative juices to have to just put random things together into a tasty dish. This curry sounds wonderful!
Sometimes the competitors don’t come up with anything that I would, and I always try and think what I would do with their ingredients 🙂
I’ve never seen Chopped before but is Ted Allen the same one from Queer Eye For the Straight Guy? I loved that show! 😀
I have not seen Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, but yes, it is the same Ted Allen 🙂
What a great idea for pork chop and curry!
thank you yummychunklet 🙂
Yum! This sounds amazing!
Thank you Elizabeth 🙂
I love curry but have never made one like this. Thanks for a great and inspiring recipe!
My pleasure Tanya 🙂
Love the fact that you added figs!! delicious!
It added a nice sweet component to the dish Zirkie 🙂