It’s popular for a reason. It’s a perfect balance of hot and savoury. A little sour. With just a hint of sweet. Good eating for all curry lovers.
Vindaloo is a Goan dish
If you are looking for authentic, this is not it. Vindaloo comes from Goa. It’s a pork curry. Maybe the only famous pork curry. Heavily influenced by the Portuguese. The Portuguese sailors came with preserved pork and garlic in red wine. The Indians took that and ran with it. And came up with something magic. The Portuguese also brought chilies with them. All I have to say about that is “Thank you Portugal”.
This chicken vindaloo is the restaurant style version
Fast forward about 500 years. Restaurants in the UK started serving up a curry dish that had a hot and sour tang. Not sure it really shares much else with the authentic version. But it’s what is called vindaloo now. Outside of India anyway. It goes from spicy to insane depending where you order it.
Flavour first, fire second
I’m a believer that a good curry needs to have rounded flavours. Most everything on this blog is medium spicy. Sometimes hot but rarely blazing. I want balance. Flavour is always job one. Never hot for the sake of hot. It’s not hard to make a spicy curry. Just add more chili. Tasty is more challenging. But it’s more important too. Make this as hot as you want. But focus on flavour first.
Chicken vindaloo starts with a paste
I’ve been tinkering with vindaloo for years. Pretty pleased with my version even. But I couldn’t quite get the depth of flavour I wanted. So I started asking questions at my favourite local Indian restaurants. And they all said the same thing. “We make a paste”. So I started messing around with pastes. It was when I got going on the laal maas recipe that it snapped into focus. Rehydrated chilies. Not chili powder. Fried in oil to round out the flavours. Like Mexican cooking. And it worked. It worked well. So now this is my go to chicken vindaloo. Using this vindaloo paste.
This is restaurant style cooking
Restaurant style cooking means you are making it the same way they do. Same techniques. Same ingredients. It’s different from homestyle. So if you haven’t done this before it is a good idea to have a read of this primer to cooking Indian restaurant style. It’s worth the time. Chicken vindaloo with vindaloo paste. Restaurant style. Took me forever to figure it out. Now I know. And so do you.
