Curried Pork with Apples and Sultanas

This recipe for a traditional Australian curry is from the Sydney Morning Herald's Household Notes column on 28 February 1928. It's a sweet curry made from leftover roast pork, with curry powder and cayenne for flavour and heat and lemon juice for sharpness. Other newspaper recipes for more authentic-sounding Indian curries called for chillies, ginger, almonds, chutney and even coconut milk, which was made by steeping dessicated coconut in hot water and squeezing the "milk" through muslin. 

Like pies, curries used the leftover roast to make another meal. From the number of recipes in the women's columns, curry reached peaks of popularity in the depression years of the 1890s and 1930s. 

This recipe makes a surprisingly good curry - not the same as a curry cooked from scratch, but still good.

Curried Pork with Apples and Sultanas

250g cold cooked pork

250g cooking apples, peeled and cored

1 onion, finely sliced

1 tomato, skinned and chopped

50g butter

1 tablespoon plain flour

1 tablespoon Keen's Traditional curry power

350ml chicken or vegetable stock (or water)

50g sultanas

1 teaspoon caster sugar

1 teaspoon lemon juice

salt, pepper, cayenne

Cut the apples and pork into large dice.

Fry the onion and apples in butter until soft, add the tomato and cook, stirring, for a minute or two. Remove the vegetables, reserving the butter.

Mix the flour and curry powder, stir into the butter and cook for a few minutes.

Gradually add the stock, and bring to the boil. Add the fried onion, apple and tomato mixture; simmer 20 minutes. Allow to cool slightly; stir in the meat, sultanas, castor sugar and lemon juice, and salt pepper and cayenne to taste. Thoroughly reheat until boiling, and serve in a border of well-cooked rice. Serves 4.