Pork Chops with Bananas and Curry served with Saffron/Cardamom infused Basmati Rice
"Recipes like this one and other sweet and salty meat and fruit combinations, like Chilli Creamed Chicken and Banana Casserole started to become really popular during the 1970s. When reading old food magazines and cookbooks from the time, each issue seems to feature exotic combinations of food that most people wouldn't have tried -- and probably didn't ever really feel much like trying either. However, some of the recipes, like the one mentioned above, survived the passing of time and became part of our food culture. Even today they are often mentioned in articles and blogs and the recipes are routinely shared. They are served in institutions like schools and hospitals and in many people's homes. Personally, I have never been a huge fan of kasher with pineapple but I definitely appreciate a good flygande jakob or a slice of port tenderloin with a perfectly caramelised banana and a mild, yellow curry-cream sauce."
"For this recipe you need nothing authentic from India or Southeast Asia. It needs to be the kind of generic yellow curry powder you find in a supermarket, which smells of sweet spices and turmeric."
Mangnus Nilsson, "The Nordic Cookbook"
I thought I would type out the intro to this recipe that I'm planning on making for tonight's supper. I have pork chops, so I'm substituting them for the pork tenderloin. I will keep everything else the same; including the method for tonight, to see how it turns out.
I have to think of a side dish to go along with this. I think simplicity on the side will be best. That means plain, basmati rice so that we can take the curry sauce and spoon it over the rice.
Recipe & Method
Preparation and cooking time: 45 mins Serves: 4
butter, for frying
800 g/1 3/4 Lb pork tenderloin, trimmed and cut into 2.5 cm/1 inch slices
3 bananas, halved lengthwise
300 ml/10 1/2 fl oz (1 1/4 cups) cream
1 tbsp yellow curry powder
salt and white pepper, to taste
Preheat the oven to 250℃/480℉/Gas Mark 9
Melt a little butter in a frying pan or skillet over a medium heat. Season the meat with salt and pepper and fry until evenly browned all over. Transfer it to a roasting pan.
Add another generous amount of butter to the pan and fry the bananas on both sides until golden. Place them on top of the port. Add the cream to the frying pan and stir the bottom of the pan to deglaze it, then add the curry powder. Season the cream to taste with salt, then pour it over the meat and bananas. Bake until the pork is cooked, but still pink in the centre, and the surface is golden.
Since this dish is sort of '70's inspired, I'm playing my 70's playlist on Spotify.
The pork was fried up to a nice, golden colour over medium heat in butter in the pan. Then, it was placed in the roasting pan. Next, I added the bananas and they are frying now. They get mushy and golden - I don't think you can keep them from coming apart, but we're after the flavour here. The kitchen smells sweet and 'banana-y' with the remnants of the delicious port wafting around.....I'm getting hungry!
I elected to forgo any vegetable as a side; I felt that the rice would be enough with the fried bananas and curry sauce. I did, however, infuse the basmati rice as it was cooking with some saffron and freshly crushed cardamom pods. That gave the rice a nice, warm yellow hue and a fragrant flavour. It complemented the banana and pork nicely.
Plating was simple enough - rice on the place with a pork chop placed on top with the banana - and I did a drizzle of the sauce around the plate so that we could blend our rice in with the sauce.