Pork Curry Mince

• All the stuff you hate on a strangers food blog

  Don’t say anything about the bowls, okay. I’m better at buying vegetables than home goods. I promise to do better.

  This is some sort of accidental global fusion dinner, which is why it had to be called a MINCE. We don’t use that word in the U.S. unless it’s with regards to words.

  How we got to this dish: I wanted something Caribbean and this isn’t.

  I started with a Holy Trinity/Mirepoix remix so that’s Europe and like Creole/Cajun.

  I deglazed the pan with Mirin, that’s Japanese.

  I was going to use Jamaican curry but went with the generic stuff from the grocery store. The fenugreek in the curry powder was giving India.

  I used ketchup for acid and sweetness which I learned from making Jamaican food.

  I used butter at the end, because, France.

  And then I put it all on potatoes because America.

  All-in-all it hit the spot. It was spicy in that there was A LOT going on, but not hot. And like… pork is top tier. But it’s just a weird bowl of food to eat since it’s not just one thing. It’s like Curry Sloppy Joes. I would make it again but different.

• Ingredients

  • 4 small/medium Baking Potatoes

  • 1lb Ground Pork Shoulder (or mystery ground pork from the grocery store)

  • Medium Carrot, diced

  • White Onion, diced

  • Green Bell Pepper, diced

  • 6 Cloves of Garlic, rough chop

  • 1/3 Cup Generic Chili Powder (McCormicks)

  • 1 Tbsp Tomato Paste

  • 1/3 Cup Ketchup

  • 2 cups Stock ( Chicken, but anything works. even water.)

  • 1/4 Cup Cilantro

  • 3/4 Cup Mirin

  • 2 Tbsp Butter

• Process

  Equipment is important. It changes how your recipe works. I used All-Clad stainless steel so I get the bottom of the pan all sticky with yummy bits which I deglazed. If you’re using non-stick then you need to adjust.

  1. Fry sm’onions in your favorite cooking oil. Until translucent.

  2. Add the ground pork, breaking it into small pieces and mixing it with the onions.

  3. Walk away. for about 8 minutes. The pork is going to get warm, let go of a lot of it’s moisture and start rendering it’s fat. That’s when the magic happens. The pork then starts to fry in it’s own fat and you get the yummy bits.

  4. Mix, let it do it’s thing. Mix, let it do it’s thing, repeat. For about 10 minutes. But you want some crispy bits. No burny bits, but i’m not sure that’s even possible to be honest.

  5. Add the carrots, green pepper, and garlic. Get them all in the pool and having fun until you can see the carrots starting to soften.

  6. Add your curry powder. Dump it in there. Be generous. Measure with your heart, not the amount I estimated I used when I wrote a blog a day later. You want to coat every last bit of thing in the pot with the curry powder. Just for a few minutes keep it dry af. You’ll start seeing the bottom of the pan look like it’s burning. That’s okay.

  7. Tomato paste and ketchup in the pan and it’s going to look like mayhem.

  8. Deglaze with mirin, working around the pan with just a bit of mirin at a time so you can scrape the crispy bits off the bottom with your wooden spoon. Cook until the liquid has evaporated mostly.

  9. Add your stock. You’re doing this to give everything some time to get friendly in there. You could do this on repeat for forever and it will just get better.

  10. When the liquid is getting low, add the butter and check for ALL the flavors, not just salt. Is it spicy enough? sweet enough? I needed to add a few dashes of hot sauce and black pepper to get it how I liked it.

  11. Put some herbs in it.

  12. Poke your potatoes with a fork and hit the POTATO button on your microwave.

  13. Spoon it into some bowls you inherited of a roommate left behind.