Pork Belly, Eggplant + Pumpkin Curry
After visiting Penang earlier this year, I was inspired by the wonderful aromatic curries and Asian flavours to experiment with making my own Asian curry. The only problem was, I was struggling for time and wasn’t keen on making paste from scratch. So I opened the fridge and found two natural pastes you can buy in the grocery store, which forms the curry base. Wanting to eat more vegetables, I threw in some eggplant and pumpkin, which complemented the pork and paste flavours perfectly. My colleagues have tasted and made this curry themselves, so you an be assured it’s AWESOME!
Preparation Time: 10 minutes / Cooking Time: Varies (45 or 90 minutes)
Ingredients
- 1 kg pork belly, rind removed
- 2 tbl ghee/coconut oil
- 1 brown onion, finely diced
- 1 tbl garlic and ginger paste
- 2 heaped tbls laksa paste
- 2 heaped tbls tikka paste
- 2 cups cubed (2cm) eggplant
- 1½ cup diced (2cm) pumpkin
- 2 cups chicken stock (or water)
- ½ cup coconut milk
- Chopped chilli (optional)
- 1-2 tsp salt
Method
- Cut the pork belly into 3 cm cubes.
- Add the ghee/coconut oil to a medium sized pressure cooker. Heat on medium heat.
- Add the onion and fry for 5 minutes until golden brown.
- Add the garlic and ginger, laksa and tikka pastes and fry for 2 minutes.
- Add the diced pork belly and brown for 3 minutes.
- Add the eggplant and pumpkin and stir well.
- Add the chicken stock (or water), stir, cover with pressure cooker lid and increase heat high.
- Which steam whistle sounds, reduce heat to medium low and cook for 22 minutes (this may vary for each pressure cooker when cooking pork). NOTE – if you don’t have a pressure cooker, complete steps 1 to 6 in a medium sized pot. Add enough water or chicken stock to just cover the meat/veg and simmer on medium – high for 1 to 1.5 hours until liquid has significantly reduced and pork is nice and soft. If you need to, add more water during cooking so pork cooks thoroughly. Continue on with step 10.
- Once cooking time has completed, shut heat and remove cooker from stove. Leave on bench to cool until lid can be safely opened.
- Re-heat vessel on medium (without lid), add coconut milk and stir through until curry just starts to bubble.
- Add chopped chilli (optional), and 1 – 2 tsp salt, to taste (this will vary depending on if your stock was salted or not)
Serve with rice or chapattis.
Enjoy! GPW