For my definition of Indian food, Vindaloo is the spiciest I ever tried. I was always surprised by how different it is than tikka masala and was really curious to cook it myself.
It is indeed very different: Vindaloo is basically marinated meat that you cook in one go in a pot. Unlike tikka masala that has the chicken fried separately, this recipe is much easier in my perspective. It is also interesting that it uses vinegar in the marinate and it has lots of garlic. My inspiration for this recipe was this SharMisscooking.
I did buy a Dutch oven for it (enameled cast iron pot) and a mortar, but I am sure you can also do without.
Vindaloo
Preparation time: 40 min
Marination time: 12 hours
Cooking time: 1 hour
Servings: 8
Difficulty: easy to medium
Ingredients
- 2 kg of meat with fat (pork shoulder, chicken thighs etc)
Spices:
- 1 tbp of coriander seeds
- 1 stalk of cinnamon
- 1 tsp of green cardamom pods
- 1 tsp of Fenugreek seeds
- 2 tsps of cumin seeds
- 2 tsps of black mustard seeds
- 2 tsp of whole black pepper
Marination:
- 1 cup of white vinegar
- 15 cloves of garlic
- fresh ginger the size of a thumb
- 2 medium onions
- 1/2 tsp of turmeric powder
- 1 and 1/2 tbsp of dark sugar
- 1 and 1/2 tbps of salt
- oil for frying the onions
- Kashmiri chili powder to taste, I add 5 tsps fro this quantity
Directions
- Cut the meat into bite sizes. You can also choose meat with bones if you like that. The most important is that the meat has some fat on it as well. the dish has very little oil from frying the onions, so the fat in the meat it will help it get tasty.
- Prepare your spices and toast them on low fire for a few minutes.
- Let them cool off.
- Grind them in a mortar or electric grinder until everything is a smooth powder.
- Fry the onion until they start caramelizing.
- In a tall pot add the vinegar, roughly chopped ginger and garlic, turmeric powder, sugar, salt, kashmiri powder and at the end add the grind spices and caramelized onion.
- Blend them until they form a very smooth paste.
- Add the paste over the meat and mix it in very well with your hands so that it gets covers everything well.
- Marinate in the fridge for minimum 4 hours or overnight.
- Time to cook: add the meat marinate in a Dutch oven, bring it to a boil and cover it for 40 min to 1 hour mixing in occasionally. It is that easy!
- And the Vindaloo is ready to be served next to rice or naan!