Panch Phoron Pork Recipe: Pork cooked with Bengali Five Spice

This panch phoron pork recipe is a quick fix for me, and a weeknight favourite that’s rapidly gaining a lot of love in the household, despite its late entry on our dinner table. I remember thinking how cool it would be to mix panch phoron and pork together, and then Pritha Dutta made a batch of Bengali pork pickle which I could not stop thinking about for a while.

Let this Bengali five spice pork, or panch phoron pork recipe be a quick, yet impressive feat, that can be, if you’re smart cookie. All you have to do is maintain balance and you will soon have a plateful of spicy pork curry, perfect for some rice or bread. Although you can very easily make this with other meats like chicken, and yes, I have tried that a few times, I have to say, with pork, the result is… well… decadent.

Recipe of Panch Phoron Pork

Using panch phoron

Take 2 tablespoons panch phoron in a bowl. Now, a little history of panch phoron – its a five-spice combination that is often used in Bengali household, and contains whole fennel, nigella seeds, fenugreek seeds, black mustard seeds, and randhuni, or wild celery seeds (at least, that’s the combination in my house). However, you can always substitute wild celery seeds for carom seeds (ajwain or jowaan). Add to the panch phoron 10-11 whole peppercorns and two star anise. Pound them very lightly together.

Heat 3 tablespoons of good quality mustard oil. If its difficult for you to get mustard oil, you can actually use rendered pork fat or vegetable oil, but the effect won’t be the same. Once the mustard oil is really hot but not smoking yet, turn off the heat and pour into the spice mixture. Let steep for at least 1 hour.

Meanwhile, marinate 1 kilo pork, cut in roughly 2-inch cubes, with 100 ml. plain yogurt. This step is crucial. You need to marinate the meat in that little bit of dairy to start its pickling process – skip that, and you’re left with an end result that’s not pleasantly tangy. Anyway, you have to be careful and not marinate it for more than 3 hours. Overnight is going to make your pork really mushy, and you really don’t want that. If you are a smart cookie, you will take about 50 gm of pork fat from the meat and render out the fat while you’re marinating the meat – but if your meat, sadly, comes lean, use the aforementioned mustard oil.

Heat fat and fry 250 gm. onions, roughly chopped, in it, till the onions are golden brown. Once the onions are golden brown, add the meat and stir fry over high heat till the meat is seared on all sides. This will take about 10 minutes or so, stirring constantly. Once the meat is seared, reduce the heat to medium and add 1 tablespoon ginger paste. The ginger will need to be mixed in well before you add 1 tablespoon green chilli paste (or to taste – you might like it hotter) and 1 teaspoon Kashmiri chilli powder (you can substitute this with sweet paprika, it tastes wonderful). Stir to combine. Add 1 teaspoon each ground cumin, coriander, and turmeric. Stir again to combine.

At this point, you can see the meat releasing a good deal of juices. You have two options: cook in a pressure cooker until its soft, or cook, covered and simmered, over the stove top until it is fully cooked. The second procedure will take more time, but the result will be far more satisfying. Keep stirring every now and then, and add a quarter of a cup of water, if the meat looks too dry.

Once the meat is nearly cooked, add salt and sugar. This recipe is a wonderful balance of sweet and salty, so I tend to use 1:1.5 proportion of salt and sugar. That gives me the perfect balance for my palate. However, its up to you how you want it to taste. Cooking is all about balance.

When its nearly done, add 7-8 whole green chillies, and the paanch phoron infused oil, strained, so that the random bits of the spices don’t get in your mouth. Once you have added it, cover tightly and turn off the heat and let the residual heat take care of the finishing touches. Do not touch for 15 minutes. Then, serve with a heap of rice and feel proud about achieving something decadent.

Btw, excuse the photos. I was in no mood to take fancy photos when this finished cooking and ate my share as quickly as I could. However, this tastes amazing after a couple of days’ of being in the fridge, and can be stored for around 2 weeks in the fridge, and up to 6 months, frozen, so you can make a batch of it and store it in individual bowls in the fridge, and take one out whenever you feel the need to chase away the blues.