Pork vindaloo pt 1

1 Servings

Ingredients

Quantity Ingredient
2 Inches fresh ginger; peeled and chopped
4 Garlic cloves; pressed
1½ teaspoon Chili powder
2 teaspoons Turmeric
1 teaspoon Salt
1 tablespoon Cardamom seeds
6 Whole cloves
6 Peppercorns
2 In cinnamon stick
2 tablespoons Coriander seeds
1 tablespoon Cumin seeds
⅝ cup White wine vinegar
2 pounds Pork tenderloin; cubed
3 tablespoons Vegetable oil
1 teaspoon Mustard seeds
⅝ cup Water

Directions

Most of the recipes I received were for Chicken Vindaloo. Since I had some "aged" pork tenderloin on hand in the freezer that had to be used up, I decided to use a Pork Vindaloo recipe I found on the web. The URL is

1.In blender, puree all spices, except mustard, with vinegar to form a smooth liquid paste. (Add more vinegar if necessary.) 2.Pour spice paste over pork and marinade in the fridge overnight.

3.Remove pork marinade from fridge 2 hours before cooking to allow it to come to room temperature.

4.Heat oil in a pot. Add mustard seeds and cover. Fry the seeds until they pop, then add pork, marinade and water. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Reduce the heat to low, cover and simmer for 30 minutes.

5.Uncover and simmer until the pork is cooked through, another 30 minutes.

Makes 4 servings. Serve with white rice.

dkumar@...

Note #1: since I usually "salt crush" my garlic, I prepared the garlic by pouring coarse salt (took a bit more than the 1 tsp. called for in the recipe) over the peeled and chopped cloves and then I crushed 'em with the tines of a dinner fork.

Note #2: for the 1½ tsp. chile powder I used ½ tsp. each of cayenne, California, and New Mexico. Next time I might try more cayenne.

Note #3: I ground all the dry spices in the blender first before adding the fresh ginger, garlic, and vinegar.

While it was spicy, neither my wife nor I thought it was hot...at least not in the chile way. I found it similar to curried foods my mom used to make once in a while. Am I right in assuming vindaloo would actually be considered a type of curry dish? I made some notations to cut back on the cardamom seeds (maybe a tsp. or two instead of a tblsp.) and the coriander (maybe 1 tblsp. instead of two) and add more chiles. I think maybe another ½ tsp. of ground chile or maybe crushed, dried red chile would be an improvement. I also might try cutting 3 or 4 dried whole cayenne or de arbol chiles crosswise with a pair of kitchen shears into ¼ inch pieces and adding 'em to the oil along with the mustard seeds before adding the marinated pork to the pan...and next time I'm using chile oil instead of vegetable oil.

I'm not a great fan of boiled white rice, so I used a variation of my "Mexican-style" rice method to make a somewhat bland, non-spicy, slightly sticky rice. Instead of sauteeing the rice in chile oil to a golden color as I normally would, I lightly sauteed the grains in a mixture of olive oil and ghee just to coat with oil and then simmered 'em in the usual chicken stock but left out the chopped onions, garlic, fresh chiles and spices.

For an accompaning vegetable my wife made Khumbi Bhaji...a hot (as in temperature) green pea, mushroom, onion and yoghurt dish spiced with mustard seeds, tumeric, garam masala, salt and chopped fresh coriander (cilantro). The recipe can be found in the small recipe booklet that accompanies the "Cooking of India" volume from the Time-Life "Foods of the World" cookbook collection.

She also baked some Nan, an Asian-Indian flatbread she made with yoghurt, whey (left over from making "yoghurt cheese") and milk for the liquids. The recipe she used for reference (without the whey) can be found in Jeff Smith's "The Frugal Gourmet On Our Immigrant Ancestors." The first "loaf" seemed a little bland, so in addition to the sesame seeds called for in the recipe, she sprinkled some different chile/spice blend mixtures on top of each round of dough before baking. A similar recipe for a leaf-shaped flatbread called Naan (but without the yoghurt) can be found in the same Time-Life volume above.

With an inexpensive, medium bodied, fruity and slightly spicy domestic (California) chardonnay to wash it down, it turned out to be a very tasty continued in part 2

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