CHICKEN VINDALOO

Spicy chicken curry

Nearly every Indian restaurant serves something that it calls Chicken Vindaloo, but the dish varies greatly from place to place. This recipe is a modification of a vindaloo recipe that appears in Madhur Jaffrey's
Indian (Barron's 1983). I've attempted to approximate the Chicken Vindaloo served at The Tandoor Palace on Second Avenue in New York.

Ingredients

(serves 4-6)

2 tsp whole cumin seeds
1 tsp black peppercorns
1 tsp cardamom seeds
3 in stick cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp whole black mustard seeds
1 tsp whole fenugreek seeds
5 Tbsp white wine vinegar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp light brown sugar
10 Tbsp vegetable oil
2 large yellow onions, peeled and cut into half-rings
6 Tbsp water
1 in cube of fresh ginger, peeled and coarsely chopped
8-10 cloves garlic, peeled and coarsely chopped
1 Tbsp ground coriander seeds
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
2 lb boneless chicken breast, cut into bite-sized pieces
8 oz tomato sauce
1/2 lb new potatoes, peeled and quartered

Procedure

Grind cumin seeds, black pepper, cardamom seeds, cinnamon, black mustard seeds and fenugreek seeds together in a spice grinder. In a small bowl, combine ground spices, vinegar, salt, cayenne pepper and brown sugar. Set aside.
Heat oil in large saucepan over medium heat. Fry onions, stirring frequently, until they are a rich, dark brown. Remove onions with a slotted spoon and put them in a blender. Turn off the heat, but do not discard the oil. Add 3 Tbsp water (or more if necessary) to the onions and blend until you have a smooth paste. Add this onion paste to the spices in the bowl. This mixture is the

vindaloo

Put the ginger and garlic in a blender. Add 3 Tbsp water and blend until you have a smooth paste.

Heat the remaining oil in the saucepan over medium heat. When hot, add the ginger!garlic paste. Stir until the paste browns slightly. Add the coriander and turmeric. Stir a few seconds. Add the chicken, a little at a time, and brown lightly.

Add the vindaloo paste, tomato sauce and potatoes to the chicken in the saucepan. Stir and bring to a slight boil.

Cover the saucepan, reduce heat to low, and simmer for about an hour, or until potatoes are tender.

Serve over rice.

Notes

Don't undercook the onions. They should be cooked until dark brown. If the onion paste turns out gray rather than brown, then the onions were not cooked enough.

This dish is very, very hot. It may not seem so at first, but the spices have a cumulative effect that builds up over the course of the meal.

Rating

Difficulty: moderate.
Time: 30 minutes preparation, 2 to 3 hours cooking.
Precision: approximate measurement OK.

Contributor

 
Jim Mattson 
University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, Calif., USA 
mattson%cs@ucsd.edu

Recipe last modified: 29 Oct 87

Original header

Path: decwrl!recipes
From: mattson@cs.ucsd.edu (Jim Mattson)
Newsgroups: alt.gourmand
Subject: RECIPE: Chicken vindaloo
Message-ID: <14384@decwrl.DEC.COM>
Date: 5 Aug 88 07:09:55 GMT
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Organization: Univ. of California, San Diego, Calif., USA
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