TIFFIN 

This is an adaptation of a traditional Goan recipe, contributed by Karen Andrade. You can read about Karen and her take on Goan food in this installment of Home Fires online over here. While the original recipe calls for fatty pork belly or shoulder, Karen makes this dish often with lean pork tenderloin, marinating the meat a day ahead and cooking it quickly in a hot cast-iron pan. The warm aromas of cinnamon, clove, and black pepper add an incredible depth of flavor to this

What is it about one-pot dishes that so compels people toward them? You can see the appeal in the proliferation of binder-clad crockpot recipe books available at supermarkets and grocery stores and it’s there in any number of classic cookbooks, too. My own attraction to them is two-fold. I hate doing dishes (as do most people), which accounts for the larger, primary, portion of the appeal. The other reason is less practical: I love the ingenuity of a seemingly complex dish t

Chicharrón may just be my favorite thing in the world—well, this week anyway. In all seriousness, though: what’s not to love: all the crisp deliciousness of a chip but made out of meat! The idea to make chicharrón has been kicking about in my head for a while. I was first inspired when I was walking the aisles of a supermarket in Fulton, TX that had a truly impressive selection of chicharrón—short and curly, long and finger-like, dusted with fiery-looking spices, or just that

It is a rare dish that can take you to another place and time. Every time I make a batch of my mother’s sorpotel, an unctuous stew of slow-cooked pork, piquant with vinegar, spices, and a dash of sweetness, I am filled with a nostalgia for the places that the dish has been, and the changes it has gone through before arriving, finally, in my kitchen in New York. Sorpotel appears in different forms in many parts of the southwest of India—some people like it with more vinegar,