This recipe’s a doozy. It takes awhile, and needs to be planned at least one day in advance.
But is it worth it? Emphatically, yes!
Vindaloo is a sweet-and-sour sauce using vinegar and garlic. It’s associated with the Portuguese influence in Indian cooking from Goa and comes from the Portuguese for “meat and wine garlic”. There isn’t a whole lot of wine in India, though, and the Indian dish is made with vinegar (of which there’s also not a lot unless you’re in a Portuguese influenced area). A similar dish is also called “pickled pork” in some Central American countries where the Portuguese dragged it as well, apparently). You can make it with any meat, or even seafood, but since it’s such a strong flavour it’s most often served with pork. Next best choice? Chicken. It’s naturally dairy-free either way, which I love because it’s so flavour-heavy without any of the stomach-churning cream or yogurt of a lot of Northern Indian cuisine. Lactose-intolerance sucks if you hadn’t heard…
I made this recipe in the slow cooker with an entire chicken cut up by someone far more proficient with a cleaver than I, but you could use chicken legs (whole or cut into 1 or 2-inch pieces. In a slow-cooker it really doesn’t matter, but in a pot you want all the pieces to be the same size so you don’t end up with dry, overcooked, or under-cooked breast. I’ll give the slow-cooker recipe below for simplicity’s sake, but know you can just cook it stove top for about 30 minutes, until the chicken is cooked and the potato is soft.
I also planned to make this over 2 days so I got the chicken marinating in the fridge, but then didn’t end up making until day 4! Thank goodness it was a fresh chicken or it wouldn’t have lasted that long. You should remove all the skin for the slow-cooker, since it’s going to be really oily, but you could also make it and eat some meat on day one, then separate the remaining skin from the chicken, remove as much of the spice blend from it as possible by rinsing it in the sauce, then throw out the skin. Then let the sauce sit in the fridge (separate from the chicken meat) overnight, and then scrape off the enormous upper layer of fat. It’s kind of disgusting how much there is, but it’s kind of incredible how delicious it tastes on day 1, even with all the oil. Without it, on day 2 and 3 and 4 it still tastes incredible (maybe even better)…when all the juices soak into the already tender chicken after returning them to the sauce after scooping off the fat. Serve with bread on day one so you don’t eat all the oily sauce in a moment of gluttonous insanity. Then serve with rice on day 2 after stripping off the cups of fat…
Sound complicated? Maybe. But maybe I’m not a great explainer. So plan ahead and you’ll never feel the same way about the trash they call vindaloo at Indian buffets…
Oh! And the leftover vindaloo paste goes incredibly well on sautéed cubed squash and onions, as it turns out. Simple and delicious, and completely fuss-free gourmet (on day not 1, that is…)
Chicken Vindaloo
1 whole chicken, chopped into 6 or 8 pieces, with or without skin. Without for a lot less fat and with for a lot more flavour with less fuss, unless your butcher does it for you. You can also just get some breasts, thighs, and wings if you don’t feel like saving by buying an entire bird.
2 tbsp malt vinegar (I used half apple cider and half balsamic because that’s all I had. That’s nothing like malt, but there you go…)
2 tsp black pepper
1 tsp mild honey (I don’t own sugar, so honey it is)
2 tsp Aromatic spice mix (see below. This is where it gets complicated, what with all the toasting and grinding and marinating)
2 fresh green cayenne peppers, seeds and membrane removed, and minced (or reds or yellow. Jalapenos will give a different flavour, but will still work)
1 tsp salt
3 tbsp coconut oil (or any high-heat oil)
1 onion, roughly chopped (aka “hacked”)
1 cup Vindaloo curry paste (again, below. Are you scared yet?)
1/4 cup tomato purée. This is NOT tomato paste. It’s a meaty tomato put in a blender from which a 1/4 cup of purée is measured. You could seed it and remove the juice before blending if you want it less acidic, but it’s an acidic recipe already with the vinegar so don’t bother.
4 cups water
1 large potato, peeled and diced (or two…and it’s a large dice…)
4 tbsp chopped fresh cilantro leaves
Aromatic Spice Mix
20 green cardamom pods
1 tbsp cumin seeds
1 tbsp coriander seeds (I ran out…oops? It was still fine)
1/2 tbsp whole black peppercorns
Three 1-inch cinnamon sticks
6 whole star anise
Vindaloo Curry Paste
8 dried red chili peppers
1 cup red wine vinegar (again, I cut balsamic with apple cider. Again, it was very wrong, but worked out fine)
1/2 cup water
1 tbsp honey (or sugar, but as I wrote above, I don’t own any)
1 one-inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled (use a spoon)
2 tbsp roughly chopped garlic (it’s all going to get blended anyway, so don’t get all chef-y with your knife)
20-25 fresh curry leaves (Yes! I actually made this recipe because I had fresh curry leaves…Sometimes you find them dried or frozen, but fresh is special)
1/2 cup cumin seed (yes, a half a cup!)
1/2 cup coriander (okay, this is where it got tricky because I didn’t have coriander…kind of important when the recipe calls for 1/2 cup! I added a bit more cumin seed and a few extra cardamom pods and no one was the wiser)
10 green cardamom pods
2 half-inch cinnamon sticks (or 1 one-inch stick broken in half…)
1 tsp ground mace (I actually had whole mace I had to grind!!! First time ever!)
2 tbsp black peppercorns
1 tsp whole cloves
2 tsp salt
4 tbsp coconut oil, or other high-heat oil (don’t skimp on this one because the oil acts as a preservative for the paste, which can last for 2 months in the fridge. But if you do really want to skimp, use just two tbsp of oil and store the paste in the freezer for up to half a year).
Instructions:
Do the Aromatic Spices first by toasting them over medium heat for a few minutes. Let them cool completely and then grind.
Start the Vindaloo Curry Paste by combing the dried chilies, vinegar and a water in a bowl for 2 hours.
Wash the chicken, dry with paper towels, and prepare it as you want (chop it into 6 or 8 pieces, skin it, cube it). Then combine it with the vinegar, black pepper, honey, 2 teaspoons (not the whole thing!) of the Aromatic Spice Mix, fresh green cayenne peppers and salt in a large bowl. If you left the skin on, push the marinade under the skin and all over the bird. It’s like a chicken massage. At least you didn’t have to kill the thing. Suck it up and make it feel a little loved post mortem…
Then leave it alone for 6 hours or up to 2 days covered in the fridge. If the skin is removed you may want to move the chicken pieces around so they all get marinated fairly evenly. If the skin’s still on the marinade will be stuck and you won’t have to do any more work. It’s had a hard enough life, that poor chicken. A little respite before being cooked would be both considerate of you and selfish since it will be more delicious for you in the end.
Now, after two hours of soaking the chilies, combine them and their liquid with the rest of the vindaloo curry paste ingredients except the oil in a blender or food processor and blend until smooth. I tried to do this in a spice grinder. It overflowed and I swore and then I transfered to a blender and it wouldn’t grind fine enough, and then then I sieved out all the spiced and tried again in the grinder without the liquid, then add the liquid back when I transferred the spices to a bowl. That sort of worked…You may need some extra water in a decently-powered blender to do this better than me. Maybe not, though. You’re probably smarter than me. Any idiot can do it, right mom? Apparently not…
Heat the oil in a skillet over medium-high heat and then lower the heat to medium and add the paste. Stir constantly for 10 minutes. It’s going to stick, most likely, so be vigilant. Done. Check. Almost there. You can do it.
In fact, you can go to bed now (or whatever you do during daytime hours if you started this keenly early).
…
The next day, or the day after that, or the day after that if the chicken is fresh (the vinegar in the marinade will preserve it so it should be fine to leave it this long in the fridge) Heat the 3 tbsp oil in a large frying pan or pot over medium-high heat and add the onions when hot. Stir and cook for about 6 minutes. Vigilance, again. Then add the 1 cup (not all of it!) of Vindaloo paste and cook about 2 more minutes. Add water to prevent sticking if needed.
Now add the chicken pieces with its marinade. Cook and stir (or use tongs to rotate larger pieces) for about 2 minutes to kind of brown the meat the a little before adding the 4 cups of water and bringing the pot to a boil. Then pull the chicken pieces out with a slotted spoon or tongs and place them in the bottom of the slow-cooker. It’s important you put the chicken at the bottom because that’s where the most heat and the chicken will more likely cook evenly and safely. Then pour the rest of the curry sauce and the diced potatoes on top of the chicken. Cover and turn the slow-cooker to low for 8 hours or high for 4. Check the large piece with a meat thermometre to make sure it’s done after the alloted time. It should be, but if your chicken pieces are very big and the sauce cooled down too much before making it into the slow-cooker…well, better safe than sorry.
Garnish with the chopped coriander and stare in amazement at what you just created. You deserve a huge pat on the back. And you certainly don’t deserve to do dishes after this one…If we ever meet, and you tell me you made this recipe, I will personally give you a pat on the back. And probably offer to do your next batch of dishes out of consideration for the work you’d done in the past.
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