Malaysian Style Pork and Eggplant Curry

This is my favourite curry at the moment to make (and eat), it is soooo delicious and so insanely easy!

I know a lot of curry pastes call for labor intensive crushing in a pestle and mortar but every time I've made this I've just used my trusty old mini food processor and whiz it all together.

Once you make the paste, marinate it with the meat then when you're ready to go cook it all up in a pot with the coconut milk and cinnamon sticks. You can simplify it even further by using chicken for quicker cooking - which I have tried with great success or make it vegetarian/vegan by substituting with tempeh or tofu - also tried and v. delicious (and soy for fish sauce, unless you have the veg. type available).

I found the recipe online somewhere and ended up making some adaptations, then lost the original recipe and had to re-write it from memory (even after some intense googling I couldn't find it again) so I think I can safely assume (hope) that it's been personalised enough for me to take the credits.

Recipe

Serves 6

1kg pork cubed (I like forequarter because it's cheap and has no bones)
1 cup chicken stock
1 400ml can coconut milk or cream
1 large/2 small eggplant cubed
1 1/2 cinnamon sticks

For the paste:

1 onion or 6 scallions/spring onions
4 cloves of garlic
1 tsp sized knob of ginger
3 tsp of turmeric
6 birds eye chilies (more or less to taste, or chili flakes if you can't get fresh)
4 tbsp of Chinese five spice
1 1/2 tbsp shrimp paste/fish sauce
2 tbsp tamarind paste
salt and pepper to taste

Chop the bulkier paste ingredients like ginger, onions and garlic in to more manageable pieces (to make sure you don't end up with a big chunk of ginger)

Whiz all paste ingredients in a food processor until smooth. If you only have a large food processor I would recommend either doubling the recipe and freezing half the paste or busting out the pestle and mortar.

Mix paste together with pork and set in the refrigerator for a few hours/overnight.

Saute in large pot until fragrant and paste is cooked. Add cinnamon sticks coconut milk/cream and stock, if sauce is too thick add some water/extra stock. Bring to boil then simmer for 1-2 hours depending on cut of pork or until pork is tender.

Add cubed eggplant 20mins before end of cooking time and simmer until soft.

Remove cinnamon sticks and serve over steamed rice!


Tip: If you're wanting to cut down on cooking time, substitute pork for chicken thighs and add eggplant along with coconut milk etc. cook until eggplant is soft and serve!