Vindaloo

Mary Holstege

Homemade pork vindaloo

[From Twitter during the first #pandemic lockdown]: Today’s adventure: Vindaloo. There are a fair number of ingredients, but it is so so delicious. If you don’t have fenugreek or mustard seeds you could add a little curry powder instead, but it won’t be as good

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Serves 4. Prep time: 20 minutes. Cooking time: 1 hours.

Ingredients

  • 1 glass apple juice [optional]

Vindaloo paste

  • 2 onions | sliced and fried to brown
  • 1 cup oil
  • 2 tsp cumin seeds | toasted
  • 1 tsp peppercorns | toasted
  • 3+ red chilis | toasted and chopped fine
  • 1½ tsp black mustard seeds | toasted
  • 1 tsp fenugreek seed | toasted
  • 3 in cinnamon sticks | toasted
  • 5 tbsp cider vinegar
  • 1½ tsp salt (see tip)
  • 1 tsp brown sugar
  • water [as needed]

Bulk of curry

  • 2 lb pork butt | cut into 1" cubes
  • 2 tbsp oil
  • 1 in ginger root | peeled
  • 1 head garlic | peeled
  • 1 tsp turmeric

Method

Prepare the Vindaloo paste

  1. Pour the apple juice into a glass of ice.

  2. Fry the onion on medium in the oil until they are brown and soft. PATIENCE! It will take a long time. It will make you hungry. Drink the apple juice.

  3. Toast the spices (cumin seeds, peppercorns, mustard seeds, fenugreek seed, and cinnamon sticks) until the mustard seeds start to pop, then grind them all together. (see tip)

  4. Blenderize the ground spices together with all the rest of Vindaloo paste ingredients (chilis, vinegar, salt, and sugar), adding water as necessary.

Curry

  1. Brown pork in the oil in batches in a Dutch oven.

  2. Meanwhile: grind together ginger root and garlic.

  3. Remove all pork from pot.

  4. Add garlic and ginger root paste to pot and cook 1 minute, stirring constantly.

  5. Add Vindaloo paste to pot and cook until bubbling (≅1 minute).

  6. Add turmeric and return pork to pot.

  7. Simmer until the pork is soft, adding water as needed (≅1 hour).

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