When I have vindaloo, it’s usually lamb. If there’s a buffet and all they have is chicken vindaloo, I’ll have that. I have a jar of Patek’s vindaloo curry paste, and it has a recipe for shrimp vindaloo on it. Hm. Never tried shrimp vindaloo.
What kind of vindaloo do you like? (And don’t say ‘Kippers Vindaloo’! )
Too spicy by far. My one experience with vindaloo was at a fancy New Yawk City Indian restaurant, and my boyfriend at the time ordered chicken vindaloo. He was sweating bullets and his face got SO RED. He loved spicy stuff, but that’s not an experience I’d ever want to put myself through. He couldn’t taste anything for the next 2 days!
I like to use vindaloo paste too. I’ll mix it with mashed potatos or if I want to jazz up some canned green beans or frozen spinach. But I also like to do the full-on chicken and/or shrimp vindaloo.
I use the Patek’s too at home with either leftover chicken or lamb depending upon what’s on hand. Goes great with naan
I’m gonna freak a bunch of you out, but I love to put peas in mine - just dump in a bunch of frozen peas.
Madhur Jaffrey (IIRC) has a wonderful recipe for duck vindaloo somewhere - her Ultimate Curry Bible, perhaps? It needs a bit more of everything than she puts in her recipe (her recipes are always toned down too much, I think), but apart from that it is perfect!
This is the basic vindaloo recipe I follow. One of the keys to great flavor is caramelize those onions! It takes time, but you really, really need that deep, rich brown onion to get the right flavor. They should look like this, not this.
If you like your curries even hotter, try phall (I like mine with habanero), or tindaloo.
Yeah, I know it’s not about macho posturing, and may not necessarily be “authentic,” but, dammit, sometimes I get the craving for some serious heat.
I made a vindaloo last week-end for the first time in years. (Wife is spice-intolerant.) In order to carry it off, I had people over and prepared a big Indian spread with two mains: Butter Chicken for the timid and a beef vindaloo for the not-so. (To be honest it was on the mildish end of the vindaloo scale, but still spicy enough to get a little sweat on and have 'em reaching for the Cobra.)
I usually prefer a lamb vindaloo but had served them lamb the last time they were over. Also, used a new recipe that I’m well pleased with.
I think I may fall back on the “two mains” strategy a bit more often, even when I’m cooking for just the nuclear family.
Vindaloo varies from medium-hot to nuclear-hot. I certainly wouldn’t recommend ordering it at an unknown restaurant. Getting something too hot for your palate is never a fun experience.
Having never heard of shrimp vindaloo, I always considered myself an equal-opportunity vindalooist. Being of the non-seafood persuasion, though, I will now have to reconsider.
Also, hells yeah, make it hot. I quit getting into spicy-food pissing contests after using one of those “additive-only, not a sauce” jobs as one might use ketchup (I’ve heard it said that capsaicin can’t actually cause chemical burns, but I’d like to know the medical term for what happened to my mouth after that stunt)…but Indian food still isn’t done right unless it hurts, dammit.
There seems to be a difference in terminology between Brit and American curry lovers.
Over here there is no such thing as a mild Vindaloo, if its mild it isn’t a Vin.
Also when it goes over a certain hotness it becomes a Tindaloo,(Fals are a different kettle of fish), though I’ve read on these boards that this seems to be a Brit term only.
A tidbit of information that I found interesting was that Vins were invented by the Portugese in Goa, (On a travel/food programme) no doubt thats where the Vin part of the name comes from .