Snowed in today, which feels odd living in North London. A good day in the kitchen filling the freezer with tubs of stew and individual shepherds pies, so when I came to cooking my own supper I wasn’t feeling up to much. Fortunately, we still had a good chunk of roast belly pork leftover from yesterday’s dinner, and I had enough energy to chuck together some spicy kare lomen sauce to go with it. I got this recipe out of the Wagamama cookbook, though I have adapted it a bit over time, because I don’t generally have fresh red peppers or lemon grass hanging about, when I want to make this to go with leftover roast meat. I’ve detailed my version below, which is very easy if you have a mini chopper, a bag of frozen roast peppers, and a few basic oriental ingredients about your kitchen. Its perfect for turning cold roast meat and plain rice into a cheering hot meal - I don’t heat the meat up, I really like the cold cold meat and the hot spicy sauce.
I wish I had discovered frozen peppers years ago. They come ready grilled and chopped, grown in Spain so easier on the carbon footprint than local hot house ones, and because they are frozen you never waste any. My mini chopper is also a kitchen essential, for me. It’s a tiny little food processor, designed I think for baby food, but handy for small amounts of sauces that you can’t process in a regular machine. It was incredibly cheap and always seems on the verge of giving out, but somehow keeps working. The other ingredients aren’t that exotic, really - Thai fish sauce, coconut cream, lime juice, curry powder, and smoked paprika crop up in so many recipe books that anyone with an addiction to cookery programmes like me will probably have them hanging about, bought after one too many episodes of Jamie or Nigella, and maybe forgotten since. Here’s your chance to use them up.
So here we go - cold roast pork kare lomen:
Get out your mini chopper, and stuff into it a small onion (roughly chopped), a clove of garlic (ditto), and about a teaspoon of that ready chopped ginger you get in jars (don’t let me stop you chopping up the real deal if you have it). Fill up the rest of the chopper with frozen grilled peppers (still frozen), and blitz in bursts till you have a rough paste.
Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a small pan, and fry the paste from the chopper for a few minutes. Add 1/2 tsp each of sweet smoked paprika and curry powder - I use Bolst’s hot curry powder, and if yours is mild you may need to also add a bit of chilli powder or sauce. Keep frying until the paste smells cooked, I.e. not of raw onions.
Add 1 cup (250ml) of water and 1 sachet of creamed coconut - I use Bart’s sachets that you heat in a mug of hot water because its easy to deal with. You could chop up and add about a tablespoon of regular block coconut instead. Stir all together, then add 1/2 tsp hon dashi powder (japanese stock powder - if not available, leave out. I get mine from the Japan Centre in Picadilly which is scary as all the signs are in Japanese and you have to guess what you are buying), 1/2 tsp of sugar, and hearty splashes of lime juice and Thai fish sauce.
Add a good pinch of salt, simmer a few minutes more, and serve with plain white boiled rice and slices or chunks of cold roast pork. Or lamb. Or beef, probably, though I haven’t tried it.
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