Vindaloo
Strength: hot 
Time to prepare: 60 minutes, plus marinading time
Hob/oven time: 30 minutes
Serves: 4
The Spyced Vindaloo curry kit is a complex blend of spices which give a hot, tangy and deeply savoury flavour spiked with the sourness of vinegar for perfect balance.
About Vindaloo
‘Vindaloo’ comes from the Portuguese dish, ‘carne de vinha d’alhos’, literally ‘meat marinated in garlic and wine’, brought to Goa by Portuguese settlers. Although Vindaloo originally wasn’t as hot as we now expect in the west, the fruity flavour provided by chilli is fundamental to its character.
Garlic’s most well-known function is to enhance the flavour of savoury dishes but is a primary flavour in a vindaloo, giving a wonderful deeply umami flavour to the curry. The vinegar will cut through the garlic to give a lovely sour/savoury combination.
A little word about potato in vindaloo…..
Potato in vindaloo isn’t truly authentic, because its addition to the curry is actually as a result of a linguistic corruption. The Hindi chefs who first came to replicate traditional vindaloo mistook the suffix ‘aloo’ to mean potato rather than ‘garlic’. The upshot is that many chefs from the Indian subcontinent now prepare vindaloo with potato and this has become a dish in its own right (and is no less delicious). If you’d like to try the ‘corrupted’ version, please add your chopped potato at stage one, as per the recipe below.
Curry Trivia
Indian food is synonymous with chilli, however the inhabitants of the subcontinent had likely never seen, let alone cooked with, a chilli until the Portuguese took control of India in 1505 and brought with them chillies from Mexico.
Recipe
700 – 750g skinless, boneless chicken thigh, cubed
OR
2 blocks of paneer or tofu, cubed
6 Tbsp cider vinegar/ red wine vinegar
2 medium onions (approximately 300g), chopped
2 medium tomatoes (approximately 250g), chopped roughly
2 tbsp vegetable oil or ghee
2 tbsp finely chopped or crushed garlic (about 12 – 15 cloves – just trust me!)
1 tsp sugar
4cm piece of ginger, peeled and finely chopped
Optional: 1 medium potato, chopped into 2cm cubes (larger cubes are fine but will take longer to cook).
To serve: Plain white rice and carrot raita (recipe below – there’s something about the subtle sweetness and cooling nature of this raita that works really well with this dish).
How to cook
- Mix approximately 1/3 Spyced Vindaloo blend (including the bay), and half the garlic with the vinegar then add whichever protein you are using (and potato if you’re using it). Mix and leave to marinate in the fridge for at least 30 minutes if you can (the longer the better, up to 1 hour).
- Heat the ghee or oil until very hot in a large high sided pan and add the onion, stirring for 2 minutes. Then add the rest of the garlic and ginger, stirring for 2 minutes (you’re looking for some caramelization here – the onions should be a little brown on the outside – if they aren’t, fry for a little longer).
- Add the rest of the blend, stir and sizzle for a minute before adding the tomatoes and meat mixture (if you are using paneer or tofu remove this with tongs then add the mixture). Cook this on a medium/ high heat for 7 – 8 minutes (stir to prevent sticking – you’re looking for the sauce to thicken – if it sticks a bit, the flavour is developing!).
- Now add the tofu or paneer if using. If you have time, you can leave the mixture to develop its flavour covered in the fridge as the Goans would (between an hour and overnight).
- Add the sugar and a splash of water, turn the heat down and simmer for around 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add a splash more water if it starts to stick.
NB: If you’re using potato you may need to add a little more water and cook for longer depending on how large the chunks are (the water will help cook the potato and will bubble off.)
- Taste, season generously with salt and serve with rice (the plain flavour of basmati works a treat here) and carrot raita if you fancy something to cool.
Carrot raita recipe:
Finely grate one carrot finely, and mix with half a large tub of your favourite plain yogurt (or unsweetened coconut yogurt), a pinch of salt and a pinch of cumin. Stir, garnish with coriander and serve.
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