First, some back-story: growing up, sorpatel was my numero uno favourite dish. I wasn't given much agency as a kid in terms of food - I ate what was presented to me, although my parents were quite aware of my preferences. Once I finished school I did get to eat out a bit, but it was mostly snacks. I do remember the first time I was ever asked what I'd like to eat though. I was about 19, and my parents were going to be away on a pilgrimage for 10 days. It was going to be the first time by brother and I were going to be left alone at home for more than a few hours. They asked us what we'd like them to cook and refrigerate for the time they were away (we had never cooked independently, other than frying eggs for breakfast - I don't think I had even ever made instant noodles!). I don't remember what Kevin said, but I do remember saying that I want 10 days worth of sorpatel. And the end result was us eating sorpatel for 9 days (we loved it so much it didn't last 10 days, and I remember we cooked a very terrible chicken curry for day 10!).
So yes - sorpatel, my favourite by a long margin, made even more desirable by the fact that it was only made a couple of times every year - Christmas or Easter, birthdays if we were lucky.
And then, when I was in Bangalore last month, Neena gave me sorpatel for dinner. Two days in a row. It was so good that on day 1 I told mom she had ordered it from someplace, not even stopping to consider that such good sorpatel could be made at home (sorry, Neena!). When she told me she had made it herself, and it was our grand-aunt's recipe, I was mind-blown. It was the comfort food of my childhood, only better! I had to have the recipe!
Couple of weeks later, back in Belfast, Neena sent me the recipe. It wasn't in the usual format, more of a flow-of-concsiousness style, which works great for me except when I'm out shopping for ingredients (and my brain-fog does make things worse when I need to approach unstructured things too)
So, one Friday I decided that was the weekend for Sorpatel. Friday night was spent first transcribing the recipe, then restructuring it so I have ingredients first and then the process.
I woke up at noon-ish on Saturday (as has been the case for a few weeks now - long sotry that probably needs its own blog post) with only one objective: I will not go to bed without having made sorpatel.
And so, here is Aunty Flo (yes, that's what we called her!)'s sorpatel recipe:
1.5kg pork (can include liver)
6-8 onions
15 garlic flakes
1.5" ginger
5 big green chillies, halved and slit
3-4 bay leaves
1 teaspoon sugar (optional)
tamarind juice (optional)
pork blood (optional)
for spice paste:
20-24 kashmiri chillies
2 rounded teaspoons jeera
10 whole peppercorns
1/2 teaspoon mustard
2/3 teaspoon haldi
15 garlic flakes
2" ginger
9 cloves
3" cinnamon
5 elaichi
vinegar to make paste
salt to taste
2 teaspoons oil
grind spices with vinegar to make a paste
if using liver, boil with salt and discard water
parboil remaining meat with salt. retain water.
chop meat small.
fry small quantities of meat lightly in oil till lightly browned and fat renders. fry liver last. retain rendered fat.
fry onions lightly till soft in rendered fat
add garlic, ginger, chillies
when onions begin to brown add the spice paste
add meat water to make a thick masala gravy
add sugar if desired
add bay leaves
simmer for 10-15 minutes for spices to cook
add tamarind juice if not sour enough
add meat and cook till tender ensuring gravy reduces till it's thick
optionally add pork blood for the last 5 minutes of cooking
Of course, I didn't fully follow the recipe. Here's my modifications:
- 1kg pork loin and also 600gm of sweet and spicy pork belly that happened to be in the freezer
- double the garlic flakes
- balsamic vinegar instead of normal vinegar
- some random type of chillies that were in the supermarket - not green, but fleshy and red. less spicy than the green chillies the recipe called for
- more than 2 teaspoons sugar (basically just finished the last bit of sugar in the house!)
- I did use tamarnid juice but no portk blood
- I forgot the bay leaves (ironically, I have way too many bay leaves in my spice stash! I really need to use them more!)
- 4 tablespoons homemade mustard paste instead of whole mustard - it's been lying in the fridge for 3 months so I was hoping the flavoud had mellowed a bit
- did not have whole kashmiri chillies but had a mix ofcrushed kashmiri and guntur chillies (that we basically use for our everyday cooking). I have no idea how much I put. basically just topped up the mixer bowl, adding more as it ground until it was a bowl full of paste.
- did not boil the pork. chopped it raw. did two rounds of lightly frying the pork before adding to the main pot before I decided to not bother and tossed the last half kg of chopped pork straight in.
- since the pork wasn't boiled I rinsed the mixer bowl and used that water instead.
- simmered for about an hour after it was gently boiling to compensate for not boiling or frying the pork.
End result: the pot was off the stove at midnight. It smelled so good I decided I had to make rice to go with it. So I boiled some long-grain white rice. Also, the end result looked too monotonous for a photo so I chopped some chives and sprinkled on top (just for the photo - the sorpatel completely overpowered it!).
A meal made in heaven. Think I ate sorpatel for 10 days, with some breaks in between.
Yep, still my favourite dish.
BTW, for all the chilli I put in (which I have a feeling was way more than the recipe called for) it still wasn't overpoweringly "hot" spicy - but it was off the charts in terms of "aromatic" spicy. it ws so spicy that when I ran the pot (my cast-iron dutch oven) under hot water, I started coughing! I think the copious amounts of sugar (as well as the slight sweetness of balsamic vinegar) offset the spice.
I have a feeling that just like how 2025 was the year I got comfortable with biryani, 2026 might be the same for sorpatel!
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