Do you vindaloo?

Do you vindaloo? I do!  Actually while I love Indian food I don't like to make it.  I get turned off by the extra long list of ingredients - especially when some of the spices are hard to find. Let's face it - most ethnic food is just better at restaurants. Unfortunately around here.... it's hard to find a real Indian restaurant.

That's why I was so glad to find this recipe for vindaloo!  I made it for dinner last nite with pork. It was really really good - and easy to make.  

And here is the best news - if you make pickles.. or pickle just about anything... then you probably already have the ingredients.

Since we both really liked this dish we'll be making it again. I need to jot down a few notes so I remember it for next time. Also I kind of got lost in a few of the steps as I had to improvise. I also prepared all of the spices, in their correct measurements, in little dishes so I could do all the steps without having to dig around in the spice rack.

It helps me if I can break up the ingredient list to go along with the steps, so this is what I did.

Marinade:
About a pound of meat
A couple red chile peppers - but I should have used hotter ones and not just the mild jalapenos.
White vinegar to cover.

Next time: marinate for longer (I only had about an hour so I should have started earlier), use hotter peps or add a few red pepper flakes. Two whole cayenne peppers? Zoikes! Not on your life - I'm more of a 1 or barely a 2 star girl. 

The meat is browned and then removed from the pan. Keep the marinade for later.

Cumin, mustard seeds, and cinnamon sticks go into the pan until fragrant. I broke up the cinnamon sticks but next time I should keep the pieces bigger so they are easier to take out for serving the final dish.

I did not have black mustard seeds but I used the yellow ones that I had for pickling. I'll remember to get the black ones the next time I'm up at Penzey's.

Next into the pan:
Onion - minced in my little handy chopper.
Garlic
Ginger

Fried until soft and translucent. 

Then add:
Brown sugar
Paprika
Tumeric

Now add the water, the left over marinade, and any peppers that didn't sneak in with the meat.

Bring to a simmer and then add the meat and any drippings.

I mostly covered the pan and let it cook for about 40 minutes. It would have been better if it would have cooked for longer but by then the house smelled like heaven and we couldn't wait any longer.

See? That wasn't so bad. And having everything " mise-en-place" made it much easier.

Our sweet Peep - she is kind of spice colored....

So where are the pix? Um.. yeah so... we ate it all. Next time I'll take pix of the steps but for now we just really wanted to make sure I got these notes down we can do it right next time.

Happy Saturday! Do you have a favorite Indian recipe? This could be mine but I'm going to be trying his recipe for butter chicken next.