This dish was stunning! Another dish I’d cooked for National Curry Week. Only slight downside was the shrimp paste I used. The shrimp paste was brought back from Singapore by a friend who was working out there with JLR. It was stronger than anything I’d previously used and the smell hung around for days…..lesson learnt!!

This dish is a Filipino native dish using pork. It’s a creamy curry with a nice heat of chilli.

Ingredients-

2 tbsp of rapeseed oil.

1 large onion finely chopped.

6 garlic gloves finely diced.

A thumb size piece of garlic finely chopped.

600g of pork belly cut into bite sized pieces.

2 tbsp of shrimp paste.

400ml (a tin) of coconut milk.

250ml ( a cup) of water.

5 red chillies finely diced.

150g block of coconut.

5 green chillies cut into small rings.

Salt and pepper to taste.

Including prep the dish takes 55 minutes roughly.

Method –

Heat the oil in a pan. Like most curries they start with cooked down onion. Once the oil is hot add in the diced onions. Fry the onions for 5 minutes until nice and translucent.

Once the onions are cooked add in the garlic and ginger frying for 30 seconds. They will release amazing smells at this point.

Add the pork and fry. This should take between 3 / 5 minutes, by then the pork should have browned.

And this is where is go interesting. The shrimp paste from Singapore…..

Oh my days it proved to be very strong…let’s just say we had candles on in the kitchen for days afterwards!

Add in your shrimp paste. Fry this out for 3 more minutes.

Add the coconut milk and water then bring it to a simmer.

Once the dish is a rolling simmer toss in the chillies. Cook this dish for 20 minutes occasionally stirring.

Chop up the coconut block.

Place the coconut blocks into your sauce. The blocks as they cook down they will naturally thicken the dish.

Add in the chopped chillies and cook until the sauce has really thickened to your liking. This should only take a few minutes. I served the final dish steamed basmati rice and some shop bought spicy prawn crackers.

Again, another dish I really enjoyed cooking this new dish.

Thank you for reading my ramblings.