Chicken Vindaloo
Vindaloo is a hot and spicy dish from the Goa region of India. Its heavy use of vinegar and the traditional meat of pork are due to the Portuguese influence on the area. Vindaloo is a popular Indian restaurant meal, where it is often made with pork, beef, chicken, lamb, prawns, or vegetables such as mushrooms.
- Prep
- 33 min
- Cook
- 1 hr 17 min
- Total
- 1 hr 50 min
- Servings
- As written in source
- Difficulty
- Advanced
Timings are approximate — worked out from the method, not measured in a test kitchen.
Ingredients
Quantities are retained as written by the source and do not scale automatically. Tap an ingredient to check it off as you go.
Cooking instructions
Procedure
Take a thick-based frying pan, and pour into it enough vegetable oil to cover the base, with a little excess. Heat on a stovetop.
Procedure
Slice the onions into fairly thin slivers. When the oil is very hot, add the onions.
Procedure
Turn the stove down to a low heat, so the onions just gently sauté. After around 3 minutes they should be starting to caramelize.
Procedure
Gradually turn up the heat and keep stirring the onions. You want them to brown quite heavily without burning.
Procedure
Add the white wine vinegar, it will sizzle, and after a while will evaporate. Keep stirring. Fry for several more minutes, until they are very brown, but not burnt.
Procedure
Remove the onions from the pan into a bowl, taking care to let as much oil as possible drip back into the pan. You should now have a bowl of nicely crisped fried onions.
Procedure
Add the onions to a blender or food processor. Add around 1 tablespoon of oil, and process for around a minute until you have a fairly thick, dark brown sauce. This is the basic onion sauce from which vindaloo is made. It's also the onion sauce that gives the vindaloo the majority of its 'hot' taste, as it builds up as you eat the dish.
Procedure
Remove sauce from blender and set aside.
Procedure
Coarsely chop the garlic cloves (and ginger if you're using it). De-seed the chili peppers and chop in the same way. Add the chopped garlic and chillies to the food processor.
Procedure
Blend the garlic and chillies until you have a fairly grainy (but liquid) sauce. For this I used an attachment on my blender which is intended to grind coffee beans. It has a much smaller container and so there's less waste.
Procedure
Add the turmeric, coriander powder, garam masala and cinnamon to the sauce. Stir it until it's well mixed, and set aside.
Procedure
Gently crush the black peppercorns in a mortar and pestle. Once coarse, add the mustard seed and rock salt. Continue blending until all the spices form a nice coarse powder.
Procedure
Pour a little oil into a saucepan. Add the spiced garlic and chili paste to the pan. It needs to be slightly floating on oil, not touching the bottom of the pan.
Procedure
When the sauce is quite hot and bubbling, add the chopped meat. Keep stirring so the meat absorbs the spice mix, until it is browned and mostly cooked.
Procedure
Now add the onion sauce to the pan. After stirring for 1 minute, add a little water and stir for another 2 minutes, then turn the heat to quite low. The sauce at this stage should be quite runny, and orange/tan in color. Remember a lot is going to evaporate off as it cooks.
Procedure
At this stage you can add some vegetables. Half a cup of frozen peas works well.
Procedure
Place a lid over the pan, and cook for around 30-40 minutes. Keep checking and stirring the pan every 5 or 10 minutes to make sure it doesn't stick or burn.The sauce will darken in color as it cooks.
Procedure
Towards the last 15 minutes of cooking time, boil 2 cups of pilau, or basmati rice in a pan.
Procedure
To serve- spoon the curry over the top of the rice. Sprinkle the chopped coriander leaves over the curry, and serve immediately.
Notes, tips and variations
Powdered or dried ingredients can be substituted for fresh, but at the expense of taste.
Notes, tips and variations
If you don't have fresh ginger use 2 cloves garlic + 1 tsp dried ginger powder.
Notes, tips and variations
To cook a more intensely spiced but still field tested variation of this recipe consider the following modifications:
Notes, tips and variations
Double the amount of each of these ingredients: chosen chilies (if you like very spicy curry) garlic ginger turmeric coriander garam masala (if you like very spicy curry) cinnamon black pepper black mustard seeds coriander leaves
Notes, tips and variations
Cook the onion sauce mixture and the meat-and-paste mixture until they are very nearly burned (consider a non stick pan for this).
Photo: Carpathia at English Wikibooks · Public domain · · Photo source and licence
Wikibooks contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0 · https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ · Adapted; quantities retained as written. · Original source
Read it through first
Skim all 24 steps before you start — it is the difference between cooking and firefighting.
Scale it
Use the quantities listed in the original recipe. Adjust them manually if making a different batch size.
Storage
Cool completely, then keep in an airtight container in the fridge for up to three days.
Reheating
Reheat gently with a splash of water in a covered pan, rather than blasting it, so nothing dries out.
Approximate values per serving. Worked out from the ingredient list — treat them as a guide, not a measurement.
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