April 18-20 Cumin Cilantro Pork

April 18   Cumin Cilantro Pork on basmati rice
April 19   Grilled Cheeseball and Broccoli Salad with Honey Mustard Dressing
April 20   Fish and Chips or Breaded, Baked Sole and Oven roasted thyme potato and yam wedges



I love cumin. I would almost wear cumin perfume, if there were such a thing or even use cumin scented glad plug ins. Instead, I have to content myself by cooking with cumin as often as I can so that my house can smell delicious and if I eat enough of it, I create my own special cumin eau de moi. I am not sure that others enjoy this as much as I do but nobody has complained yet.



I have had this recipe for cumin scented chicken from Lick My Spoon Evernoted and it's been on my mind since I first saw it. I really wanted to make it with chicken but I had this big chunk of leftover pork tenderloin that had to be used or it was going to get thrown out. Dianne and I did our 11k walk on this morning and to be honest, I didn't really want to take another 3k walk to and from the grocery store to buy chicken so it was either going to be cumin pork or take out at this point. We all really enjoyed it (I added some hot sauce to mine, as usual), it was simple and quick to make. The pork can be done in the time it takes to cook the rice so it will be a perfect mid week meal  - well, it WOULD be if I were allowed to make it again this year.

Oh, and today is Little Shack's 12th birthday so happy birthday to me and my baby xoxo



Cumin Cilantro Pork
adapted from cumin scented chicken from Lick My Spoon

1 tbls of butter or ghee
1/2 tbls of vegetable oil
1 tsp cumin seed
salt
1/2 bunch cilantro
1 tsp ginger paste
1 tsp garlic paste
1/2 onion chopped
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
pinch tumeric
about 1 1/2 cups leftover cooked, cubed pork tenderloin
about 1 cup of chicken stock (you might need more to cover it completely but you can also just add water if the 1 cup of stock isn't enough)
1/2 cup chopped yam
1 stalk broccoli, cut into florets
1/2 cup frozen peas
juice of 1/2 lime

serve with basmati rice

heat the butter and oil in a heavy pan over med heat. Saute the cumin seed until it's fragrant, about a minute. I put the onion, garlic and ginger into my bullet and pureed it, which you can do or you can just add it all to the pan chopped finely, it's up to you. Saute that another minute or so until its really starting to smell and take a bit of colour. Add the dried cumin, coriander, tumeric, 2 tbls chopped fresh cilantro and salt and continue to fry it for another minute. Then throw in your chopped up left over pork (you could also substitute left over cooked chicken) and stir it around and get it all coated with your onion/spice mixture.
Add the chicken stock and the vegetables and if the contents of the pot aren't covered by liquid, add a bit of water to make that  happen. Cover and bring to a boil and then remove the lid, lower the heat to med low, squeeze in  your lime juice and let it simmer until the vegetables are cooked and some of the liquid has cooked off a bit. Just before serving, add the rest of your cilantro, chopped roughly, stir to mix it in and then serve over rice.