Bacon and Cabbage Potato Chops

An Irish-Goan fusion recipe for St Patrick's Day 🇮🇪

Hello everyone!

Welcome back to another edition of Yesterday’s Curry, my newsletter in which I document my ongoing research into Goan cooking, the cuisine of my heritage. As some of you may be aware as well as being half Goan, I am also half Irish. This week’s newsletter will be something a little different as I share an Irish-Goan fusion recipe I’ve been working on this week to celebrate St Patrick’s Day which was a few days ago on the 17th March. I don’t generally cook a lot of Irish dishes, but growing up there was one dish in particular we would eat a lot, something which my Irish Grandmother made every time we visited her; bacon and cabbage. It may sound unassuming, but this is a really tasty dish which consists of boiling a joint of boiling bacon (gammon is all the shops seem to have these days), steaming some savoy cabbage, and serving with buttery mash. During the lockdown when I last ate it, there were lots of leftovers which I turned into a hash the next day and that sparked the idea for today’s recipe. One of my absolute favourite Goan dishes is potato chops. For those of you that don’t know (ie the non Goan contingent of my readers) potato chops are a Goan snack of mash potato with a mince meat filling, coated in either breadcrumbs or semolina and then fried. Combining 2 of my favourite things my recipe for bacon and cabbage potato chops is a combination of Goan spiced savoy cabbage mixed with shredded gammon and mashed potato and coated in fine semolina.

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So without further ado, here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

• 1-1.5kg unsmoked gammon joint (I used a 3kg joint but I only needed half of it)

• 4 medium sized potatoes

• 1/2 savoy cabbage

• 2 spring onions

• 4 cloves of garlic

• small chunk of ginger

• 1 green chilli

• spices: coriander seeds, cumin seeds, 1 Kashmiri chilli, turmeric, cinnamon, cloves, peppercorns

• 1 large egg

• 1 tbsp butter

• fine semolina

• handful of chopped coriander

• oil for frying

• salt and pepper

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1. Start by cooking the gammon as per the instructions on the packet. I found that a 3kg joint was done in an hour and a half. Once cooked, slice up the gammon into small pieces and shred so the pieces are very small - like the size of bacon lardons. If you want to make this recipe even easier you can just fry up a packet of your bacon of choice and then set aside to cool.

2. Then it’s time to make your spice blend. Put all the whole spices into a frying pan and heat for a couple of minutes on a medium heat until you can smell them. Allow to cool and then blend in a coffee grinder or pestle and mortar with the turmeric and ground cinnamon. If you want, you can bypass this stage and use shop bought garam masala plus turmeric if you’re in a rush.

3. Peel the potatoes and chop into chunks. First, rinse them to remove excess starch then boil, starting in cold salted water for 15-20 minutes until soft. Drain and then mash with a potato masher. Add butter and a pinch of salt (not too much because the gammon is salty).

4. Remove the stalk from the savoy cabbage, and finely slice it into strips. Slice the spring onion and green chilli and grate the garlic and ginger.

5. Heat up a bit of oil in a frying pan and add the spring onions. Cook for about 3-4 minutes. Then add the garlic and ginger and cook for another minute. Add 1 tsp of the spice blend, stir to combine everything then add a splash of water. Add the savoy cabbage to the pan and put a lid on for it to steam. Cook for about 10 minutes, checking if you need to add any more water to help the cabbage to steam.

6. Add the gammon/bacon and sliced green chilli to the cabbage and stir to combine. Add the chopped coriander, check the seasoning and leave to cool. Finally, add the gammon and cabbage to the mashed potato and stir together until it is all well combined.

7. Once the mixture has cooled down, mould into discs about an inch thick, as per picture below. Cover with cling film and leave in the fridge until they have firmed up. An hour or 2 should be fine.

   

8. Once the potato chops are cold and firm, dip in egg then semolina or breadcrumbs/panko and store in the fridge again to firm up a bit. I got 8 out of the mixture but you can make 10-12 if you make them smaller.

9. Heat up about some neutral oil in a frying pan - I don’t measure the specific amount but you want it to be about 2cm deep. Once it’s hot, put the potato chops in the pan - about 4 at a time, and then turn the heat down to low-medium. Fry for about 5 minutes on each side and then drain on some kitchen roll.

10. Serve with any condiment of your choice, and a squeeze of lemon (not pictured because I forgot to buy a lemon 🙃)

Over on my instagram, I’ll be uploading a video of me making these which may help visualise the process if you want to try making them. If any of you try this recipe, please do let me know and tag me in your creations!

Until next time

Emma x

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