Indian (Goan) Pork Vindaloo

What a great dish! First, it is best to plan on preparing the base of this dish the day before you actually will be cooking and serving it, as you'll need to let the meat and seasoning paste sit in the refrigerator for 8 to 12, or even 15 hours. 

 

"Vindaloo" is the Indian rendering of Portuguese "vinha d'alhos;" that is, "wine and garlic," a dish the Portuguese took to India when they had colonial holdings there from the 1500s until 1961. I've simplified the seasonings for this dish by using already ground spices. But, if you want to make your own seasoning paste totally from scratch, to a food processor, add 10 dried Kashmiri chilies (seeded), 2 inch piece of peeled fresh ginger, 6 medium garlic cloves (peeled), 4 teaspoons whole cumin seeds, 8 black peppercorns, 10 green cardamom pods, a 2 to 2 1/2 inch cinnamon stick, 4 whole cloves, 2 teaspoons black, brown or yellow mustard seeds. Process these ingredients together with the red wine vinegar, salt and brown sugar, until smooth, then continue with the instructions below.  

Naturally there are some variations in recipes for Vindaloo, but I've not found many huge differences in recipes among people from the Indian Subcontinent; although I've seen a small number of recipes that use tomatoes or tomato paste, which, from my understanding, is not typical of Vindaloo in India. Also, the Goan rendering of this Portuguese-based dish uses "aloo" at the end, and that is the word (in various transliterated spellings) on much of the Subcontinent for "potato," and so some Indian recipes use potatoes in the recipe; although in this case, the ending does not mean "potato." Just from what I've heard and read at times, Vindaloo was taken back to Britain in the days when much of the Subcontinent was a British colony (but the Portuguese still had Goa as a colony there). People in Britain seemingly expected the dish to be spicy hot, and so when people in the UK made their interpretations of Vindaloo, they made it hot, a reputation that the British-style Vindaloo served in Indian or Indian-themed restaurants still carries to this day. Remember, people of the Subcontinent eat spicy hot food on a regular basis, so some of the things people from elsewhere might call "hot," may not cause so much as a twitch in a native of the Subcontinent. 

Ingredients (4 to 6 servings):

 

2 pounds fresh pork shoulder, cut into bite-size pieces 

(optional) 2 whole dried red chilies

2 inch piece ginger, peeled and grated

6 medium garlic cloves, minced

3 tablespoons Kashmiri chili powder, if you have it,* or substitute 1 tablespoon ground red pepper (cayenne) + 2 tablespoons sweet paprika

2 teaspoons ground cumin

1 1/2 teaspoons ground black pepper 

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cardamom

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

2 teaspoons dry mustard  

2 teaspoons salt

1 red onion (baseball size), peeled and finely chopped 

1/4 cup red wine vinegar

1 tablespoon brown sugar (light or dark)

4 tablespoons oil (vegetable, canola, sunflower or peanut are good)

1 cup water (more, if needed)

 

Make sure to cut the pork into bite-size pieces of about the same size, so that the meat cooks evenly. Put the grated ginger and the minced garlic into a bowl. Mash the ginger and garlic into a combined paste (a mortar and pestle is great for this). Into a bowl, add the ginger/garlic paste, Kashmiri chili powder (or the cayenne/sweet paprika substitute), ground cumin, ground black pepper, ground cardamom, ground cinnamon, ground cloves, ground mustard, salt, red wine vinegar and brown sugar; mix it all together very well into a kind of paste. Into another large dish (non-reactive), add the pork pieces and the seasoning paste. Mix to coat all of the pork pieces with the paste, cover and put it into the refrigerator for 8 to 12 hours. Remove the meat from the refrigerator about 30 minutes before you begin cooking. To a heavy-bottomed pan or skillet, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the chopped onion and saute for about five minutes (it's okay for the onions to get lightly browned, don't let them get dark), then add the paste coated meat to the pan/skillet, the whole dried chilies (if using), along with one cup of water (add it carefully, the oil in the pan will spatter), stir minimally, and let it come to a simmer, and stir a bit. Turn the heat to low (it should gently simmer) and cover. Check occasionally and stir, add a little more water, if the dish is too thick (2 or 3 tablespoons at a time, up to 1/3 cup, but you don't want the sauce to be watery). Let simmer and continue to stir occasionally until the meat is very tender. Serve with rice, and don't forget the naan bread to sop up the wonderful sauce, usually called "gravy" by people of the Subcontinent. 

* If you go to Indian/Pakistani restaurants and you see dishes that are more than a little red in color, it is likely from the use of Kashmiri chili powder, as it gives dishes their very red color; but in spite of its fiery red color, Kashmiri chili powder is not terribly hot like regular Indian chili powder, which is like cayenne pepper.

 

 

 

WORD HISTORY:

Ail (ailment)-"Ail" is apparently related to "awe" (thus also to awful and awesome),^ but the actual origin of "ail" is shaky, although it certainly seems to be a Germanic word, and it might have eventually come from a couple of Germanic words with "shaded" meanings, perhaps with the same Germanic source, but then consolidated into what is now "ail." "Ail" goes back to Indo European "agh," and its suffixed form "aghlo/eghlo," which meant, "to be afraid, to be distraught, to be unsettled." This gave Old Germanic "aglijanan," meaning "to cause pain (of living things), to damage (of inanimate things)," and this gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "eglan" meaning "to cause pain, to afflict, to trouble," and this then became "eilen," and "ailen," before the modern form. "Ail" has always carried not only the sense of physical pain, but also of mental anguish; thus, "What ails him," can just as well be in reference to what's bothering or troubling him in a mental anguish sense, as something that's physically wrong. The noun ailment was derived from the verb, in the 1600s or 1700s (? sources conflict). German has "ekeln," a verb meaning "to be disgusted, to feel disgust (about or toward)," but it seems to have been taken on from Low German, which has had various forms over the years like: "eglen," "ekelen," "eichelen," meaning "to be irritated/angered, to feel displeasure, to be disgusted" (German and Low German also have the noun "Ekel," meaning "disgust").

^ "Awe" is a Germanic-based word, but it was borrowed by English from Old Norse.