I'm a big fan of Middle Eastern and Central Asian cooking, but the whole thing about pork being haram (Arabic: forbidden) really bums me out. Legend has it that ancient Kievian Rus took up Christianity because the proto-Russians liked to drink too much. And so my love of pork keeps me from converting to some Abrahamic religions, just like my love of going commando keeps me from becoming Mormon, and my lust for beef keeps me from becoming Hindu...you get the idea.

Russians living in Uzbekistan have gotten around this by producing plov with pork (see my other article), and if you go to Orthodox Armenia, you can find delicious pork dishes with more exotic spices being prepared. Still, how was I to incorporate the noble pig into the culinary delights of Afghanistan to please my pork loving family? I came up with this, using the traditional Afghan tastes of garlic, cilantro, turmeric, and chilis with pork.

So, here's my soup. By the way, you can use other meat too, for a more "traditional" taste, preferably mutton, but that shit's just way too expensive for me.

Ingredients:

1 lb. pork, cut into big cubes (they'll stay lusciously juicy that way)

2 medium onions, halved and thinly sliced into half rings

3 medium tomatoes, finely diced

1/2 tablespoon of turmeric

2-3 whole chili peppers (jalapenos work fine)*

4 cloves of garlic, finely minced

1 bunch of cilantro, finely minced

salt and pepper to taste

cooking oil

1. Heat up your pan to medium-high heat and add the oil. If you've trimmed the fat off your pork, render it in the oil, until you end up with little pork rinds. Remove them and eat them.

2. Brown the pork in the oil, and remove. If your pork has bones, all the better--they'll impart a wonderful flavour to the soup.

3. Fry your onions until they're transparent, and sprinkle with the turmeric.

4. Add the tomatoes and chilis, and return the pork (and bones) to the pot. Lower the heat a notch, cover, and cook until the tomatoes are pretty much liquified.

5. Add water until it comes to about three inches above your goodies. Salt and pepper that motherfucker to the desired standard, lower the heat to low, and cover.

6. Let it ride out at a simmer for about half an hour or forty minutes, making sure that it doesn't burn off water. You want a soup, not a stew.

7. When the meat is nice and tender, remove from heat and stir in your cilantro and garlic. Let it sit for about 5 minutes before serving.

8. Serve with hot flat bread.

*You can chop up the peppers, but I like eating them whole, whereas my wife doesn't like spice. If you cook them whole in the soup, they'll give the soup a bit of heat, and you can eat the cooked peppers whole later.

Taste testing the forbidden fruit.

Satante's Haram Pork Soup