Christmas: Who makes the best Sorpotel?

Christmas is not Christmas without pork sorpotel; whether it's prepared the Goan, East Indian or Mangalorean way! Each will swear that theirs is the best, but let's not forget to thank the Portuguese for this heavenly dish. Generally cooked with pork meat and liver and sometimes even pig's blood, this robust meat is parboiled, diced and sautéed before masala and vinegar are added. So, what sets each community's 'best' sorpotel apart?

Bottle-masala rules!
Firstly, you can't have East Indian sorpotel without foogyas. Well, you can, but it's more fun with those little round balls made of maida, yeast, milk (or coconut juice) and an egg. East Indian sorpotel is a typical dry dish with vinegar and a strong flavour of bottle masala – a dry powdered masala made with more than 50 ingredients, including two to three varieties of red chillies, spices, gram, dry coriander and cumin. You'll recognise it at once as East Indian, because of its brownish-red colour and julienned ginger, green chillies and garlic.

Go Goan
There are as many recipes for Goan sorpotel, but all will lead you to a yummy red, spicy gravy dish that ought to be eaten with sannas – idli-looking (but thicker) rice cakes fermented with toddy. Goan sorpotel is prepared with ground masala consisting of red Kashmiri chillies, spices (cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, pepper and a little turmeric), ginger and garlic and lots of finely chopped onions ground together in vinegar. This ground masala and chopped onions are then mixed and cooked with the pork meat, ready to grace your Christmas table.

A Mangi affair
Again, there's more than one recipe for Mangalorean sorpotel or what they also call kaliz-aan-kiti. Prescilla D'Souza, a homemaker from Borivali, tells us that it is rich and thick, but not spicy. At some point, almost all parts of the pig were added, like heart, intestines, liver, ears, tongue, fat, blood (to thicken the gravy), and other parts you might not want to think about (today though, not everyone adds these). Excess pepper gives it a blackish hue.
Another recipe claims to be spicier and includes cloves, dry coriander, cumin, pepper, mustard seeds, turmeric, cinnamon, ginger, garlic, vinegar, water, salt, Kashmiri chillies, green chillies and onion. Grind it all, mix it with the meat and cook. If you're planning to add some drops of pig's blood for a richer taste, now's a good time. And then let it simmer. A little tip about sorpotel, the taste gets better every passing day. So, allow the pork to absorb the spices for a day (or two) and then dish out a bowl full of goodness! Of course, don't forget the sannas made with coconut juice!

—With inputs from Ornella D'Souza, Giselle Martin and Rachel Pinto