Pork Vindaloo
Hot-sour-spicy Portuguese-Goan recipe of slow-cooked pork with spices, vinegar and garlic.
- Cooking time3 hours
Calorieskcal
Vindaloo was born in Goa sometime in the 16th or 17th century after the Portuguese set up colony there. The word vindaloo comes from the Portuguese recipe ‘vino de alhos’ where ‘vino’ refers to (wine) vinegar and ‘alho’ is the word for garlic. Vindaloo is a fusion of Portuguese, Goan and South Indian ingredients and cooking.
This particular recipe comes from the book ‘Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerers‘ by Lizzie Collingham. The book, besides being one of the best writings on Indian food history, has some fantastic recipes such as this one. We looked at a lot of recipes, both online and in books, but honestly this recipe of vindaloo—though a little more elaborate in the number of spices—is in our opinion one of the best.
Considering just how good this vindaloo tastes, it is really easy to make if you have all the ingredients. While the original recipe used pork, you can use duck instead of pork too.
Books in this recipe
Ingredients
- 1 kg pork shoulder (4-cm pieces)
Dry spice mix
- 5 g dried red chillies
- 10 g whole cumin
- 5 g poppy seeds
- 3 g cloves
- 3 g black pepper
- 5 g whole mustard seeds
- 4 cm stick of cinnamon
- 3 g turmeric
- 5 g kashmiri red chilli
- 1 sprig curry leaves
Wet spice mix
- 20 g garlic
- 20 g ginger
- 5 g fresh red chillies
- 10 g tamarind pulp
- 50 g palm vinegar
- 27 g salt
- 10 g jaggery
For cooking
- 30 g oil
- ½ tsp mustard seeds
Method
- To create the vindaloo spice mix, dry-roast the listed spices, and grind them to a powder.
- Next, grind together the ingredients listed under 'wet spice mix'.
- Marinate the pork with the dry and wet spice mixtures. There is no need to let it rest; it can be cooked immediately.
- Heat mustard oil in a pan until smoking. Temper with mustard seeds.
- Add the marinated meat and leave it to braise on low heat, with lid on. Check and stir every so often to make sure it’s not sticking.
- Continue cooking on low heat until the meat is tender. You may need to add water to adjust the gravy, or to deglaze the pan if the spices are sticking.
- When the meat is soft and when you are happy with the colour of the sauce, add hot water just enough to form a thick gravy. Garnish with fresh curry leaves.
- Once the consistency of the sauce is to your liking, add some fresh curry leaves, cover with a lid, and turn off the heat.
- Once cool, put the vindaloo in the refrigerator. Vindaloo is almost like a pickle. Like any braised dish it gets better with time. Plan to make this at least a day ahead so that the flavour get a chance to mature.
