pork apple curry (or how we fell in love with our new crockpot)

currently listening: of montreal – hissing fauna are you the destroyer

Erin here.

I went to Kate’s parents’ place in Akron for Christmas. I’m not really close to my family (geographically or otherwise) so I don’t usually make it home for the holidays. Kate didn’t want me to spend Christmas alone (how thoughtful) so… to Akron!

On Christmas day, her dad made this amazing pork curry in the their crockpot that filled the entire house with the smell of curry. We both love curry so we kept wandering into the kitchen to see what was going on or just drool over the way it smelled. The wheels started turning and it was an almost simultaneous epiphany: “we should get a slow cooker. ASAP.” And it was decided, and it was good.

We bought the slowcooker at Target with our combined gift cards – she had a Visa gift card, I had a Target one, therefore, we bought it at Target.

Again, wandering around the supermarket, we slowly amass our ingredients.

Dec 30th, 2008

4-5 lbs of center cut pork loin
6-7 granny smith apples – 3 are cored and finely chopped, 3-4 are cored and thinly sliced horizontally.
1 each green and red bell peppers, coarsely chopped
1 large onion, coarsely chopped
1 cup (appx) apple cider
.5 lb applewood smoked bacon
3 cloves garlic, minced
1.5 cups jasmine rice
ground curry (we have several different varieties that we like to mix and match. all of the ground seasonings/fresh herbs are to taste)
ground cumin
ground coriander
ground paprika
ground cinnamon
ground nutmeg
ground new mexico chili powder
fresh rosemary, finely chopped
4 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons flour
olive oil

sear meat with olive oil, garlic, rosemary and ground seasonings. (the seasonings are a crapshoot, i’m still learning how much needs to be put in for recipes that are so large. i’m not used to cooking this quantity of food. but, as you’re making the actual curry sauce later, you can add more if you think it’s too bland.) put in crock pot with apple cider, veggies and the three apples that are finely chopped. again, set it to low (8-10 hours) if you’ve got the time, high (4-6 hours) if you don’t. cook bacon in same skillet that you just seared the pork loin and garlic and rosemary. cook it however you like – some people like it crispy, some people like it wiggly. heh. wiggly bacon.) chop up and add to the crockpot.

now for those sliced apples. these will take a couple hours. i found the recipe online in someone’s blog and now i can’t remember where. shit. (after about ten minutes of searching, i found it! mmmmm. apple chips. we made the lime juice-cumin and the cinnamon sugar ones. we had some leftover fresh apple slices and served those alongside of the apple chips. just thinking about those chips makes me want to go out to the 24hr giant eagle on 117th and buy a 5lb bag of granny smith apples and spend all night making apple chips. so good.

i didn’t do this when i made this particular recipe because i didn’t think to do it but i really should have so i’m including it in the recipe. the curry sauce was way too thin. so – the roux sauce again – but with curry this time. draw off most of the liquid in the pot (but not all, don’t want it to dry out while you’re making the sauce) two tablespoons butter and flour each for every cup of liquid. melt butter in medium saucepan over medium-low heat. add flour and mix thoroughly, letting it thicken in heat. slowly add liquid (small portions at a time, mix thoroughly before adding more) until all the liquid is mixed in. let thicken more, stirring frequently. add more seasonings to taste. some people like their curries hot as fuck. some people like a mild, more savory flavor. it’s all up to you. add it back into the crockpot.

it kind of ate the end of this entry so i’m going to just save it here and finish it tomorrow.

cooking the jasmine rice is pretty self explanitory, 1 cup rice to 2 cups water. make however much you want. stir occasionally. keep covered. etc etc.

we served this meal with roasted asparagus, fresh and baked granny smith apple chips, jasmine rice, with the pork curry mess on top. sooooooo good.

diners: erin, kate, pete.