Yell, Dwell, Hell nothing like Sorpotel!

When its GOAN cuisine I am FAMISHED

One of the questions I keep asking the students is that how many in the class are vegetarians? And I see many raised hands, Sometimes the Question is like this. How many in the class are vegetarians who eat meat? Again I see some raised hands. Nothing wrong? But I do believe the religious part of it.Not long before I had a pure vegan student, who once said, Sir ,I just hate meat, and products with addition of eggs, and she added, only when I am at home and when my parents are around, otherwise everything taste like chicken. My bro once tried to pull his stomach out , coz of the rice which he ate was cooked by using chicken stock,
One of the most common meat used by humans during the olden times were pork, there were so many reasons for it, and the varieties of product made from pork , sausages, salamis, forcemeats, in brief I put it all together in a single word Chacutiere(pork butchery) . we study of all these and relate continental cuisine to it, and we forget our own Indian pork dishes, there are so many, the best and the best, And all the credit goes to Goa .
There are endless dishes with pork in india, but many of them are from goa, the fact we have to agree. Pork Balcho, Pork Baffado, Pork Assado, spicy Pork sausage, Pastelo, Pickled Pork, Pork Vindaloo and the King of all Pork Sorpotel. Many in goa claim that their Sorpotel is best, the nice thing about sorpotel is that it can be prepared at least four to five days in advance of the special day. It is warmed up once a day till the day it is served with ‘sanna’ a steamed rice muffin.
The say a festival dining table is incomplete without the famous sorpotel and bibinka. And same like the bibinka a dash of coconut fenni is added in the sorpotel recipe. Here is a goan song dedicated to Sorpotel

For the hotch potch known as Haggis
Let the Scotsman yearn or yell
For the taste of Yorkshire pudding
Let the English family dwell

For the fame Tandoori chicken
That Punjabi praise like hell
But for us who hail from Goa
There’s nothing like Sorpotel!

From the bigwigs in colaba
To the small fry in Cavel
From the growing tribes in Bandra
To the remnants in Parel

From the lovely girls in Glaxo
To the boys in Burmah Shell
There’s no Goan whose mouth won’t water
When you talk of Sorpotel

And Oh! For Christmas dinner
Don’t you think it will be swell
If by some freak of fortune
Or by some magic spell

We could, as they have in Goa
A bottle of the cajel
And toddy leavened sannas
To go with Sorpotel!



Recipe:
Parboil the meat for twenty minutes and mince it fine, grind together 12 redchillies, 12 peppercorns, 1 tsp cumin.ginger, garlic, 8 cloves and 2 piece of cinnamon with 3/4cup of vinegar, Light brown the meat in oil to brown color, add the ground spices and stir for ten minutes add little more vinegar, the stock, chopped onions and green chillies add salt for taste and cook till the oil floats on top and the gravy is thick. Forget not to stir. And taste , if you are not happy with the taste. YOU HAVE PROBABLY FORGOTTEN THE MOST IMPORTANT INGREDIENT “ LARGE QUANTITY OF LOVE’


More of Bibinka and Fenni in my nex blog

The Birthday Cake

The Amateur, the professional, the fresher…..The difficulty in remembering two hundred and fifty grams of Flour, Butter, Sugar and ten eggs, with an addition of fifty grams of cashew and raisins mixed together. Indeed very hard to remember for Mr.Sapan (matlab Dream) a fresher or an amateur in cooking. The list of ingredients were written in a small piece of paper, folded and carefully placed in Mr. Dream’s pocket, the reason it’s his birthday the day after and he wants to prepare his birthday cake. Ah! What a birthday to remember…

Sirji, you do the purchasing and I’ll pay for it, is what Mr. Dream said, my reply of NO is to make him to learn a little bit of purchasing, Mr. Dreams excitement lingered around a few seconds after his exit. The purchase ended the same day after three to four phone calls from him the same evening.(clarification of indent!!!)
It’s he who prepares and I just help him, the creaming of butter with sugar, the long time beating of eggs, sieving of flour and baking powder together with an addition of cocoa powder everything went well. He sounded more like a professional in baking, and it sounds like he completely didn’t knew the functions of Ingredients, and most importantly one should know that a wrong measurement will turn a pro into amateur in baking. I am sure that he learned how to mix, though we didn’t measure the ingredients and I could literally see a finished baked cake in his eyes.
Looking at him , I stopped asking him the functions of ingredients and the reason for mixing, sieving and creaming, after twenty plus and another thirty minutes at Two hundred and twenty degree Celsius, my calculation of equal amount of flour , butter and sugar didn’t deceive me. The cake was perfect with awesome flavor and color, for the taste I have to wait till the midnight. Just a look in his eyes, I could say how the cake taste. The real reason behind this simple yet a beautiful cake is, not just the ingredients and the oven, along with a dash of Mr. Dream’s Love and passion, which made it all wonderful. I shouldn’t have used the word Amateur Isn’t it?
HAPPY BIRTHDAY ……
Everyone is green in culinary, we learn something new every day. HAPPY COOKING!