what chronic fatigue syndrome has taught me about myself

yes, this was the title of the previous blog post, but as I started typing it I realized it went a complete different direction! these observations are much more significant and long term, so I feel like I must blog them anyway

1. chronic fatigue has made me more sensitive to things that were easier to ignore otherwise
   
   
2. the dopamine feedback loop of technology is almost all-pervasive and is literally dragging me down
   
   
3. mornings (waking up on time) absolutely set the tone for the rest of the day. the difference between waking up at 7am and 10am is the difference between feeling on top of the world (relatively speaking - it's still a struggle, but more bearably so!) and dragging myself through the day. if I'm still in bed after 10am I can pretty much give up on the day (with some exceptions - hopefully today is one of them!).
   
   
4. nights set the tone for the next morning. I absolutely NEED to be asleep by midnight, and that means winding down physically by 11pm, and mentally by 11:30pm. if I want to feel fresh the next morning, midnight is too late, and I should aim to be alseep by 11 - something I haven't managed to do in months, which explains my worsening fatigue. I need to wind down, not get things done. I need to resist the urge to tackle things as I see them, especially as bedtime approaches.
   
   
5. productive non-work time needs to be used productively. it seems like my productive time hits me when I'm in the mood for entertainment, and that's where the tech dopamine feedback loop takes over.
   
   
6. I tend to prioritize short term rewards over long term rewards even though it seems perfectly possible to do the latter. before chronic fatigue hit, I was easily able to do both by just pushing myself to tackle the long term stuff when I was in the mood for it (which usually happened after 10pm, frequently after midnight!)
   
   
7. timeboxing is my weak spot. I lose track of time when I'm being productive. I have all the tools, I just don't use them, and that's what turns positive activities into problematic knock-on effects.
   
   
8. physical activity is a feedback loop. once I cut down on it, it just gets worse until it feels like I cannot get out of the loop. it literally took me all of last week to bring myself to the point where I could get out and go for a walk. I have literally dressed up and then given up.
   
   
9. the small thigns add up. I do not factor in the effort I need to take to be ready to get something done, some I frequently have to give up before I've even started. the small thigns add up even more when it comes to my moments of weakness - mornings and nights.
   
   
10. chronic fatigue has unmasked the problematic areas of my life that I have literally struggled with since I was a kid - just that the ability to ignore them and carry on has been taken away.

wait, 10 is a repeat of 1! I think that'as a hint I should stop here. Time to get some long term things done, and make sure the negative cycle ends today!

what am I doing wrong?

Sitting on my couch at 1pm on Sunday afternoon, still groggy and not feeling fully awke, my "morning" (made half an hour ago) coffee half-drunk and cold, but sipping it anyway as it's too much trouble to reheat it... and the inevitable thought hits: how did I get here? Not in the metaphysical sense, but in the more short term sense. What did I do wrong yesterday? And this morning? Does the problem go further back?

1. I got into bed at like 1am. But I was unable to fall asleep. after 20 minutes (the amount of time I was told I should allow myself to go to sleep - and if that doesn't work, I need to get out of bed and do something that calms my mind down to prepare itself for sleep - lying in bed for extended periods is counterproductive). during those 20 minutes I had put on my favourite playlist (DJ Tiesto) on the ipod bedside dock.
   
   What did I do wrong? Get into bed too late, without enough "calming my mind" first. Also played something that I like but wasn't calming enough.
   
   
2. I got out of bed and decided to do a bit of tidying up. I moved some of the stuff that needs to go into the atticc up to the landing, moved other stuff that had to be dusted and put away from the 2nd floor  landing to the 1st floor "office room". Stuck my watch on charge as it was less than half-charged. Entered the bathroom and was about to put away the electric razor head which I had washed on Friday night after shaving my head... when I noticed it wasn't as clean as I thought it was. I spent some time (no watch so no idea!) just washing it again, btu more carefully, with warm soapy water, which cleaned up about half the stuff stuck between the blades, but obviously that wasn't great. One thing led to another and after a year (or maybe two - I don't remember) I finally realized the right way to clean the razor head (and why it wasn't working as well as it should have) was to pop out this plastic retaining structure, so that the individual blades pop out. The blades were absolutely caked up with hair! And this was a really quick and easy way to clean the blades. So this was waht I was missing all these years! RTFM should have done it but the manual (as always) had been packed away as soon as I unboxed the razor without even a glance!
   
   What did I do wrong? Getting sidetracked into doing something simulating instead of calming, not keeping my watch on meant I couldn't timebox it.
   
   
3. After these razor shenanigans, I started feeling hungry! And it wasn't a mild hunger but the cloying hunger that I knew wouldn't let me sleep. So I headed downstairs, looked for something quick and not too bad to eat at that hour. I thought half an avocado should do it... but it didn't. A bit of iberican jamon followed - but that didn't help either. I decided to give it a few minutes to see if that helped, so while I was waiting, I unscrewed the jamon from its stand and tried to move it to a position that seemed more similar to what was on the box... but it didn't work. By the time it was mounted back firmly it was back in its original position, but with a bit of mess created in the process. So I had to clean up the jamon crumbs cos it probably wasn't a good idea to leave them on the chopping board overnight. I wasn't feeling any sleepier and still hungry, so I downed a single serving bag of crisps. At that point I decided I had to go to bed no matter what, so I took my watch (now almost fully charged), turned off the music (which had just been left playing all this while) and went to bed. Don't remember the time but probably soemwhere between 2:30 and 3am.
   
   What did I do wrong? Doing things standing up, physically intense (mounting the jamon on its stand took quite a bit of effort). Eating junk. Taking way too long away from bed at bedtime.
   
   
4. I went out for dinner with a couple of friends yesterday. The dinner was extremely hearty (I think I overate! but it was so good I couldn't help myself - I did leave a bit on the plate though, very uncharacteristic of myself but at that point I knew I was going to get myself into trouble! I got back home by 9pm, extremely tired, but I felt like I shouldn't go to bed so soon after eating. I turned on some youtube, and watched some absolutely pointless videos (the war on ukraine, why replacing generic windows drivers for SSDs with manufacturer-supplied ones won't help performance when the SSDs are part of a software RAID array, why Irish wool is barely turning a profit for all the businesses involved). During the first couple of videos I would pause them when I was getting out of earshot and resume them once I was back. Basically I refilled the bird feeders, took the recycling out, tied the recycling bin to its usual spot, took out the food waste, stuff that was mostly outdoors and involved heading in and out.
   
   What did I do wrong? Increase my mental load by mixing outdoor activity with youtube on the TV, when I should have just stuck it on my headphones or listened to music instead.
   
   
5. That done, I settled on the couch with more pointless videos playing. I was absolutely exhausted at that point and quicly moved from sitting to lying on the couch, and I was zoning out of the videos. At one point I definitely dozed off because when I woke up the video had finished. I ignored the sign though and re-watched the video, now fully awake. Once the video was done I turned everything off and went upstairs for a shower. Before heading up I put away my shoes which I had left outside the shoe cabinet to air out. I noticed a pair of shoes I had stopped using after my feet expanded was still in the shoe cabinet, and decided to wash it during my shower so it could be put away later. Washed shoes first, then showered, but both with the window closed cos it was too cold outside. Once done I left the bathroom window wide open to let the moisture out and told myself I'll get back in 20 minutes to shut it before going to bed. I headed downstairs to find something to do for 20 minutes. I found my tabled charged and decided to play some games on it.
   
   What did I do wrong? Ignore the obvious sign that I was exhausted and ready for bed, do more than the absolute minimum required before going to bed. Playing games on the tablet is the opposite of relaxing/winding down before bed.
   
   
6. I got out of bed at 9:15am yesterday. That's after setting an alarm for 8:45 (and another for 9, cos I was sure the first one wouldn't get me out of bed). That's the earliest I've got out of bed in over a month (if you ignore non-negotiables like catching flights etc). Earlier, I had figured that my energy levels are a lot better if I get out of bed when I first open my eyes - ignoring the urge for "a few minutes more" or "it's too early" - but back when I arrived at that conclusion and started practicing it, my eyes would open at between 7am and 7:30am. These days, without an alarm, my eyes first open at 11 on some days! Thankfully though I didn't feel the slight dizziness/rush of blood to the face (a hot flash!) I ususally get when I try to get out of bed, so I guess my body was OK with the reduced sleep/early wake up. The problem was I had only slept at 3am the previous night - I had friends over till midnight (I invited them over for dinner and we lost track of time) and after they left I had a shower and shave, and then tried to clean the razor. And finally, I took the tablet to bed and played games before falling alseep - only stopping when the tablet ran low on charge.
   
   What did I do wrong? Do more than the absolute minimum required before going to bed, knowing I had an early start the next morning. Play games when I was already ready to sleep. Play absolutely way more games than I should have!

In short, my biggest problems seem to be: sleeping late, not winding down before bedtime, doing more than I should when I am tired, ignoring the knock-on effects of having less sleep one night, on the next day and especially the next night! The other thing I have noticed is playing games is how I blow off excess mental energy, but I shouldn't be doing it when I'm already low on physical energy. I don't recognize in the moment when I'm not doing what I should be. I don't timebox activities that I am doing for a specific purpose.

On the other hand I think some things are being done right - I am not feeling isolated or down, I am doing an appropriate amount of physical activity. I am not ignoring my basics/baseline activity (it had actually gotten to a point where I had stopped showering before bed daily because I wasn't feeling "up to it"!). I am getting things done.

11 years of krist0ph3r.com

well, I actually missed the date. it was 3rd Feb. The email from goDaddy said I purchased it for 5 years, at what now sounds like a steal - INR 2635, so absolute peanuts. In fact I remember being presented the option of purchasing 10 years at the same rate, but going for 5 because I had no idea how useful it'd be - at that time I was still hoping to get my hands on kristopher.com, as the dude who owns it had a single notepad-written unformatted html page of some random text and a photo of a deer.

anyway, kristopher.com has now been revamped (so the odds of him selling/giving it up to me are slim to none), I renewed krist0ph3r.com at full price in 2020 (USD 114.84!) and I have embraced the domain as my identity (basically about a dozen initially burner emails are now in permanent use!) and I'm not going to discard 11 years of SEO just like that... so it's going to be krist0ph3r.com for as long as I'm of sound mental and economic status.

what's funny though is how little has changed since maybe the first month after I set it up - it's basically run like clockwork. the only things that changed were the subdomains (well, only one, added in 2016, and has stopped working now - I don't see the need to fix it 😁) and a bit of DNS shenanigans when I migrated from goDaddy to NameCheap in 2020.

Interestingly, this time of year marks the anniversary of many signups of things I still have active accounts for: I signed up for Facebook, twitter and my blog in Jan - Feb 2007! 19 years... is a very long time! Strangely enough, the person who convinced me to join facebook just showed up in my friend suggestions - obviously because she's now unfriended me. LOL. But I'm happy these sites have kept going for as long as they have. At least I know my blog can be kept alive for as long as the internet exists... Facebook and twitter, probably less so. So for anyone who wants to keep in touch, you can email me at any address ending with @krist0ph3r.com and I will get it - of course no guarantee that I'll read it, but you've got a path to get in touch.

Anyway, I've rambled enough. Happy birthday to the domain! Regular programming shall commence.

2025

2025 ended and 2026 started over 3 weeks ago. It's been quite the year - and I think I need to write up some of it "for the record" lest I lose track of it. In fact, I've been actively putting this off as it's been a year I still have mixed feelings about. But since I've already just posted my first blog for 2026, now is probably the best time to give it a go.

2025 started with me in A&E - we went for a movie on 31st december, I had intense lower abdominal pain that was gettng worse, and we had to leave the cinema and take a taxi to hospital. bringing in the year in hospital felt surreal. almost a throwback to 2007, when I "celebrated" my birthday being admitted to hospital right after lunch with family and cutting (and eating) the cake. the only difference this time is, unlike 2007, when I remember telling mom she didn't need to stay with me in hospital, and was left there alone by my choice, feeling absolutely down and in tears, I had Shruti by my side this time. I started the year grateful for the people around who supported me when I really needed it. oh and the first thing that happened to me after midnight was a rectal probe - Shruti and I laughed that it was the absolutely weirdest start to a year anyone could have had!

even though kidney stones are not dangerous, painkillers weren't doing the trick, and the year continued with two more trips to A&E, the third ending with me being admitted and the stones "taken care of" - a week into 2025 and I had another achievement to be ticked off, my first ever hospital admission in the UK and the 3rd hospitalization of my life.

a few days later, there was another shock, when Shruti's mom, who had been visiting, had a cardiac arrest that she never recovered from. it's another moment that I can never forget - having to do CPR for the first time on a person, after the half dozen or so times I've practiced on a training dummy. taking a break while the ambulance crew used the AED on her - unsuccessfully - then the adrenaline injection, still unsuccessful, then another go at the AED, and me doing CPR in between all of this. The relief when her heart restarted. the surreal experience of being in the same hospital, the same A&E, that I just got out of less than a week ago.

what followed was three weeks of ICU, having to come to terms with the possibility of her never regaining consciousness, and finally being told by the doctors it's time to pull the plug. 6 days of watching Shruti grieve by her mother who was still alive, but inching to a guaranteed death. and when the time came, organizing the wake (sort of) and the cremation. after family left, it was time to help Shruti get on with her life, while simultaneously trying to get on with mine. back to work, back to trying to deal with my chronic fatigue without the help of Shruti's family and our friends who pulled together to support us when things were really rough.

a few weeks later we travelled to India. that was another emotional whirlwind for Shruti, reopening fresh emotional wounds every time someone would ask about her mother's death, every time she had to submit a copy of the death certificate to get some more paperwork done. that month was a blur - I still don't remember much about that trip other than it involving loads of paperwork and form filling and Shruti crying every night. I convinced my mom that now was the best time to travel to Belfast, and we were able to organize things so that we could travel together.

april to september 2025 went by in a blink of an eye - it's the longest time I've spent with mom since I moved out in December 2016. It felt great to reconnect with her, but my fatigue got significantly worse during those 5 months and while she didn't say too much I'm sure it hurt her to see me struggle so badly with my health. Shruti turned 40, I turned 42, mom turned 76. I earned my day skipper at long last (literally 4 years of workong towards it!). Those 5 months were a blur of walks (which tapered off a couple of months in as my fatigue got worse), fatigue-induced-haze, and trying to work. I did start getting better towards the end of mom's visit though, and was on the upswing by the time she left in early september.

my own trip to India (second of the year!) was in early october, and by thast point I had steadily got better in terms of fatigue. it was literally the day before my flight that I had my last therapy session, and the flight to mumbai felt weird, as it was the first time in over a year that I had nobody to be accountable to for my wellness, than myself. something any adult should normally feel, but honestly given the emotional mental and physical turmoil I had been through so far in the recent past, I felt like I was a child who had just learned to walk all over again.

I think my therapist was right in deciding I was ready to face the world and my fatigue without professional assistance. I was able to function. I was able to live within my limitations and energy levels. definitely not as well as before, but I wasn't spending days in bed like I did only a few months earlier. three weeks in, I felt ready for what (to me) felt like the ultimate test of my recovery - an ambitious motorbike trip across the country to harshad's farm near kodaikanal. it was not without hiccups, but by the end of those two weeks, I had returned home with something I was really missing all this while: evidence to back my hope. evidence that things are concretely getting better, I can still do things I enjoy.

I returned to Belfast in early november, and while it wasn't smooth sailing throughout, I was able to get back into the grind of work, life and day to day stuff, and I definitely felt like things were sustainable.

come end december, we were off to Mumbai again - after a tiring day and a half of travel, we landed on Christmas eve, for the first Christmas in Mumbai since 2018 (and back then, we couldn't really enjoy it as we flew back on the 26th!). This was the first time in years that I was on leave in Mumbai without any plans, and while in hindsight it felt like I didn't do much, I think the relaxation and family time, meeting friends, a good amount of digital detox, really helped me end the year on a much better note than it started.

2025 ended with a bbq at Myron's, and 2026 started with Tony's Ros - defintiely an improvement over the previous year!

that's it for 2025. the year that was so crazy that even when it ended, I didn't want to think about how it went, what I've learned, or what I want 2026 to bring me. I'm just happy and grateful to have survived it, come through stronger, felt feelings that must be felt, and kept going through it all (even if just barely!)

footwear shenanigans

I was in a local train in Mumbai - running northbound on the western line. It was late afternoon. I was at a window seat, in the direction facing the breeze, just ahead of the door - an absolute prime position. The train was fairly crowded - all the seats were taken and there were even a fair number of people standing, but it wasn't packed like rush hour. I was reading a book, and had my lightweight fabric bag on my lap.

I looked up from my book and out of the window, trying to identify where I was.

I was pretty sure I was approaching Malad.

I put my book into my bag and (yes, I can't really explain this!) squeezed through the window! I hung on to the outside of the running train by holding myself up, like an extreme pull-up, from the bars of the window.

That's when panic struck: what if I got it wrong? What if I was not actually seconds away from Malad (or indeed, any?) station? I didn't dare look ahead. I just kept my grip and tried not to overthink the situation.

Thankfully, I was not wrong. The train entered Malad station seconds later. I waited for it to slow down enough before letting go and alighting on the platform without incident.

That's when I realized, I had kicked off my shoes when I was sitting and reading. I was barefoot on the platform!

My first reaction was to try and find my seat and wear my shoes. Easier said than done though. There was a pretty big crowd of people boarding and alighting the train. Also, I couldn't quite locate the door next to which my seat was. There was some confusion as I thoguht my seat was betwen the ladies' coach and the first class section, but when I located the two sections they turned out to be adjacent! Given the crowd and difficulty locating my seat, I decided to abandon that idea and buy a peair of shoes at Malad. I was afraid of getting my feet injured in the crowd, which was beginning to resemble rush hour from what I could see.

I walked out of the platform and on to the road, keepign an eye out for anything that might injure my feet. To my disappointment, there were no shoe shops nearby. I walked a couple of streets and finally found a small shoe shop - actually just a wooden shed, resembling a cobbler's shed. A young girl manned the shop - maybe in her late teens. To my surprise, she spoke perfect English! I pointed to a pair of shoes (a white canvas pair) and asked to try it out. It was quite a snug fit, but I was able to adjust the laces to get them to fit comfortably. I asked her the price, and she said they were Rs 3000. I was quite surprised, as I had picked that pair expecting it to be cheap. I told her I had lost my shoes getting out of the train and just needed a pair to wear to get home. She told me I had picked a high quality pair that had quite an advanced design and pointed out some of its subtle features that set it apart. I told her I wasn't interested in any of that, and actually had a canvas pair that costed barely Rs 1000, and suited me just fine. In fact I liked that design so much that I had two identical pairs, as did my wife and my father in law! She said that unfortunately this was the cheapest canvas pair she had and she recommended I buy it.

That's when I noticed that the bit under the laces, leading to the tongue of the left shoe, seemed to be darned. I asked her if the pair was new, which confused and then surprised her when I told her it looked like it had been darned. In fact, on closer inspection, it hadn't been mended properly, and a bit of the fabric was still ripped.

She told me this was a really embarassing mistake and she had no idea how such a pair was in her shop as she only stocked brand new shoes sourced directly from the manufacturer. She told me I could have the pair for free as she was going to complain to the manufacturer and get a refund. I thanked her and left the shop, thikning I had done well for myself, having got a pair that looked cosmetically new, and which could probably be mended cheaply!

But that's when I remembered I still didn't have the insoles that I was supposed to wear when walking. Those were way more expensive than my shoes and would be a pain to replace! The more I thought about it the more hopeless it seemed - the insoles had my name and phone number on the underside, but the phone number was missing the international code for the UK, so any attempt to contact me would be futile. Even worse, I realized that someone who found my shoes in the train would be unlikely to take out the insoles and check the underside so the odds of anyone even finding my number are probably close to nil. I was so disappointed I just stopped walking, closed my eyes and tried to visualize my shoes, cursing that moment I decided to leave them behind. Why did I even go through that train window? It didn't make sense. But then I remembered, those were my blue slip-on shoes I had been wearing. The ones that didn't have detachable in-soles. My (expensive) custom in-soles were in my black pair! Which means they were still at home!

A sense of relief came over me. All was not lost. In fact I had just got myself a nice pair of shoes for free! What a turn around!

And that's when I opened my eyes, in the dream and in real life - I woke up.

ps: my first thought when I woke up was this dream was based on very recent events - it's only been 5 days since I last rode a train in Mumbai, and the blue slip-on pair I supposedly left behind in the train was given to me by my father in law only three weeks ago! my second thought was... WHY ON EARTH WOULD I CONSIDER SQUEEZING OUT OF THE WINDOW OF A RUNNING TRAIN?

pps: I thoguht I'd add a photo of the blue slip-ons for the post but it turns out they're still drying in the bathroom as I washed them last night before going to bed! wonder if that's why they showed up in my dream!

a journey

lying, face to the lamp, but eyes closed. ignorant of the mosquitoes. take a deep breath. feel the energy, the fire, getting into you. it fills you, making you bigger and brighter, as the music fades in insignificance to the rush in you. you feel the rush, the brightness, spread. rapidly, then slower, as it reaches your extremities. it leaves a glow, a calm brightness, even as it begins to cool. imperciptibly, then noticeably, as the rush turns to a measured pace. but it doesn't stop. because as the light fades, you prepare the next one.

ps: this is one of those weird things that I typed a long time ago (precisely 12 years ago - December 2013) but didn't post at the time. I was reminded of it in a conversation last night... and it's something I remembered typing so vividly that I was able to pull up the draft mid-conversation in seconds! I still can't comprehend why I kept it in my drafts for 12 years despite it being fairly visible in my consciousness!

pps: the circumstances of this post are intentionally kept vague, but let's just say it was typed towards the end of a rather eventful evening in Hampi, and Clive (who experienced those events with me) was surprised I even got far enough to type it coherently 😂

my first favourite dish: sorpatel!

I'm not one to usually follow a recipe, let alone remember it, so this post is quite likely a one-off.

First, some back-story: growing up, sorpatel was my numero uno favourite dish. I wasn't given much agency as a kid in terms of food - I ate what was presented to me, although my parents were quite aware of my preferences. Once I finished school I did get to eat out a bit, but it was mostly snacks. I do remember the first time I was ever asked what I'd like to eat though. I was about 19, and my parents were going to be away on a pilgrimage for 10 days. It was going to be the first time by brother and I were going to be left alone at home for more than a few hours. They asked us what we'd like them to cook and refrigerate for the time they were away (we had never cooked independently, other than frying eggs for breakfast - I don't think I had even ever made instant noodles!). I don't remember what Kevin said, but I do remember saying that I want 10 days worth of sorpatel. And the end result was us eating sorpatel for 9 days (we loved it so much it didn't last 10 days, and I remember we cooked a very terrible chicken curry for day 10!).

So yes - sorpatel, my favourite by a long margin, made even more desirable by the fact that it was only made a couple of times every year - Christmas or Easter, birthdays if we were lucky.

And then, when I was in Bangalore last month, Neena gave me sorpatel for dinner. Two days in a row. It was so good that on day 1 I told mom she had ordered it from someplace, not even stopping to consider that such good sorpatel could be made at home (sorry, Neena!). When she told me she had made it herself, and it was our grand-aunt's recipe, I was mind-blown. It was the comfort food of my childhood, only better! I had to have the recipe!

Couple of weeks later, back in Belfast, Neena sent me the recipe. It wasn't in the usual format, more of a flow-of-concsiousness style, which works great for me except when I'm out shopping for ingredients (and my brain-fog does make things worse when I need to approach unstructured things too)

So, one Friday I decided that was the weekend for Sorpatel. Friday night was spent first transcribing the recipe, then restructuring it so I have ingredients first and then the process.

I woke up at noon-ish on Saturday (as has been the case for a few weeks now - long sotry that probably needs its own blog post) with only one objective: I will not go to bed without having made sorpatel.

And so, here is Aunty Flo (yes, that's what we called her!)'s sorpatel recipe:

1.5kg pork (can include liver)

6-8 onions

15 garlic flakes

1.5" ginger

5 big green chillies, halved and slit

3-4 bay leaves

1 teaspoon sugar (optional)

tamarind juice (optional)

pork blood (optional)

for spice paste:

20-24 kashmiri chillies

2 rounded teaspoons jeera

10 whole peppercorns

1/2 teaspoon mustard

2/3 teaspoon haldi

15 garlic flakes

2" ginger

9 cloves

3" cinnamon

5 elaichi

vinegar to make paste

salt to taste

2 teaspoons oil

grind spices with vinegar to make a paste

if using liver, boil with salt and discard water

parboil remaining meat with salt. retain water.

chop meat small.

fry small quantities of meat lightly in oil till lightly browned and fat renders. fry liver last. retain rendered fat.

fry onions lightly till soft in rendered fat

add garlic, ginger, chillies

when onions begin to brown add the spice paste

add meat water to make a thick masala gravy

add sugar if desired

add bay leaves

simmer for 10-15 minutes for spices to cook

add tamarind juice if not sour enough

add meat and cook till tender ensuring gravy reduces till it's thick

optionally add pork blood for the last 5 minutes of cooking

Of course, I didn't fully follow the recipe. Here's my modifications:

• 1kg pork loin and also 600gm of sweet and spicy pork belly that happened to be in the freezer
• double the garlic flakes
• balsamic vinegar instead of normal vinegar
• some random type of chillies that were in the supermarket - not green, but fleshy and red. less spicy than the green chillies the recipe called for
• more than 2 teaspoons sugar (basically just finished the last bit of sugar in the house!)
• I did use tamarnid juice but no portk blood
• I forgot the bay leaves (ironically, I have way too many bay leaves in my spice stash! I really need to use them more!)
• 4 tablespoons homemade mustard paste instead of whole mustard - it's been lying in the fridge for 3 months so I was hoping the flavoud had mellowed a bit
• did not have whole kashmiri chillies but had a mix ofcrushed kashmiri and guntur chillies (that we basically use for our everyday cooking). I have no idea how much I put. basically just topped up the mixer bowl, adding more as it ground until it was a bowl full of paste.
• did not boil the pork. chopped it raw. did two rounds of lightly frying the pork before adding to the main pot before I decided to not bother and tossed the last half kg of chopped pork straight in.
• since the pork wasn't boiled I rinsed the mixer bowl and used that water instead.
• simmered for about an hour after it was gently boiling to compensate for not boiling or frying the pork.

End result: the pot was off the stove at midnight. It smelled so good I decided I had to make rice to go with it. So I boiled some long-grain white rice. Also, the end result looked too monotonous for a photo so I chopped some chives and sprinkled on top (just for the photo - the sorpatel completely overpowered it!).

A meal made in heaven. Think I ate sorpatel for 10 days, with some breaks in between.

Yep, still my favourite dish.

BTW, for all the chilli I put in (which I have a feeling was way more than the recipe called for) it still wasn't overpoweringly "hot" spicy - but it was off the charts in terms of "aromatic" spicy. it ws so spicy that when I ran the pot (my cast-iron dutch oven) under hot water, I started coughing! I think the copious amounts of sugar (as well as the slight sweetness of balsamic vinegar) offset the spice.

I have a feeling that just like how 2025 was the year I got comfortable with biryani, 2026 might be the same for sorpatel!