Anyone coming from the UK knows too well what a Vindaloo is and what it is all about and sadly it has a reputation that doesn’t entirely give it the credit it is due!
The vindaloo has been joked about, appeared in many comedy sketches and has even had songs written about it and it is now firmly embedded in English folklore as one of the hottest of curries served at your local curry house, with only the “phall” being hotter and a vindaloo always needs to be washed down with large quantities of lager on friday or saturday night!
Well, this vindaloo recipe will change your minds.
What you may or may not know is that the Vidaloo derives it’s name from the Portuguese dish “carne de vinha d’alhos,” which is a dish of meat, usually pork, with wine and garlic, hense carne, meat, vinha, wine and d’alhos, garlic.
What’s that got to do with an Indian dish?
Well, in the 1498 Vasco de Gama at the request of the king of Portugal arrived in Calicut, in the state of Kerala and started the ball rolling setting up trade between Portugal and India. Portugal basically ruled the Malabar Coast and as far east as Madras setting forts on the way. Bombay was given to the British in 1661 as part of the Portuguese Princess Catherine of Braganza’s dowry to Charles II of England, but basically Goa became the capital of Portuguese Goa from 1530 onwards until the annexation of Goa proper and the entire Estado da Índia Portuguesa, and its merger with the Indian Union in 1961. After India’s independence from the British in 1947, Portugal refused to give up control of its Indian possessions to India. Eventually, India had enough of this malarky and in December 1961 they invaded Goa, Daman and Diu, where the Portuguese put up a futile fight. The Portuguese armed forces had been instructed to either defeat the invaders or die but with their poor firepower and size (only 3,300 men) and probably too much toddy, oh and plus the force of a fully armed Indian military of over 30,000 men with full air and naval support, they decided to surrender ending 450 years of Portuguese rule in India.
By that time of course this dish had become very popular amongst the locals in Goa, the wine was replaced with palm or toddy vinegar and red Kashmiri chillies were added, and that my friends is where this rich, dark, spicy and sweet dish comes from.
I jumped at this when I was in Goa, mainly because it was my first dish I had seen on a menu that contained meat! I was vary wary of course because of the infamous reputation and I was pleased that like most other dishes I had eaten on my travels through the Indian subcontinent, it was spicy but not eye watering hot!
This recipe comes from Rick Stein’s India and is tried and trusted, although I reduced the amount of chili powder by half, mainly because Ricky likes his Indian food a bit hotter than I do and also I am usually cooking for my German friends, who as I have learnt from eating in the very poor selection of Indian restaurants here, do not do hot as we know it!
This serves 4 -6
Ingredients:
For the marinade:
- 750g of pork shoulder cut into 5cm chunks
- 5cm piece of cinnamon
- 1 tsp black peppercorns (Pondicherry is my prefernce)
- 1 tsp whole cloves
- 1 tsp cumin seeds
- The seeds from 12 green cardamoms
- 1 small onion roughly chopped
- 8 cloves of garlic, peeled and roughly chopped
- 25g ginger, roughly chopped
- 2 tbsp Tamarind liquid (1 tsp tamarind paste diluted in about 3 tbsps boiling water
- 1 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp sugar (palm or jaggery are best)
- 1 tbsp Kashmiri chili powder (2 if you want really hot)
- 1/2 tsp turmuric
Cooking the vindaloo:
- 2 tbsp ghee or vegetable oil
- 1 small onion, chopped
- 3 medium sized tomatoes, chopped
- 3 fresh green chillies, halved lengthways and de-seeded
- 100ml or so of water
Preparation method:
For the marinade, grind the cinnamon, peppercorns, cloves, cumin seeds and the cardamom seeds into a powder. Then put the ground spices into a food processor along with the onion, garlic, ginger, tamarind, salt, chili powder, turmuric and vinegar and blend into a smoothish paste. Put the meat in a large bowl and mix thoroughly with the paste making sure that the meat is well coated. Cover and let it marinate for about 12 hours in the fridge. So you can even prepare this the day before as I do.
Remove from fridge about an hour before cooking to get the marinated meat up to room temperature.
Heat the ghee in a large pan or casserole at a medium heat and add the onions and fry them until golden and soft. Add the meat and all the marinade and fry for about 5 minutes, stirring now and then to make sure the meat is a little browned. Stir in the tomatioes and chillies, add some water pop a lid on and cook on a medium high heat for a couple of hours or so. Check now and then to see how it’s cooking as you don’t want it to become too dry. If it does add a bit more water. But what you want is a nice thick rich gravy.
Serve up with some rice and chapatis and enjoy!