Goan-style Chicken Vindaloo

Description
The "Vindaloo" style of cooking is of Goan origin - and is essentially a fiery-hot "sweet and sour" style curry. It can be cooked with any meat - and tonight I'm doing it with Chicken. I've never cooked this before - so I had to do some research. This dish involves a few more spices than usual - but they are easily obtained from your local Asian shop. The combined aroma of freshly roasted cinamon, mustard seed and cloves is heavenly. Ingredients

Spices for dry-roasting
(use the quantities as shown in the first picture):
 * cloves
 * mustard seeds
 * cinnamon (dal-chini)

The rest of the spices

 * bay leaf
 * cardamom pods
 * ground coriander
 * salt
 * turmeric
 * garam masala
 * red chile powder
 * garlic and ginger pulp chunks from your freezer
 * 2 "bullet" style chile peppers - one red, one green
 * a tub of tamarind sauce - which should be at least 60% tamarind (you can find these in the freezer section of the Asian store) - you will need a couple of generous scoops of this.
 * 1 teaspoon of sugar

And

 * 1 medium onion sliced into 5 cm long pieces
 * 3 chicken breast fillets (around 400 grams) (i normally use thighs - but couldn't get hold of any tonight)
 * some "silverskin" style pickled onions - pickled in white wine vinegar (not malt vinegar)
 * half a tin of chopped tomatoes (for some reason i forgot to show this in the picture)
 * some freshly chopped coriander leaf

Directions
First get a small frying pan heating on the hob - no oil. When the pan is hot - throw in the whole cloves, cinammon pieces and mustard seeds. Dry roast them like this for a few mins - until they start to smell roasted - then pour the pieces into a small bowl and let them cool down. Then crush the roasted spices down - I use the base of a glass tumbler. Meantime - get the onions frying in a little sunflower oil.



After a couple of mins - add the bay leaves and broken-up cardamom pods. Fry until the onions have browned. Then add the thawed garlic and ginger pulp - and stir fry for a few minutes more.



When the onions have thoroughly browned - add the rest of the dried ground spices - 1 teaspoon turmeric, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon ground coriander, 2 teaspoons garam masala - all heaped spoons except the turmeric - which should be just above a level teaspoon. Stir fry the mixture for around 5 mins gently.



Then add the chopped Chicken pieces. And continue to stir fry until the Chicken is cooked all over the surface - and is thoroughly coated in the Onion/spice mixture.



Then toss in the sliced bullet peppers - these are quite hot - but we want this dish to be quite fiery! Stir around for a few mins - and then add a couple of glasses of water. This is the point at which you bring it to the boil - and then lower the flame so that the pot simmers (with the lid on) for about 20 mins.

After about 20 mins of semi-aggressive simmering - the Chicken should be well cooked. Stir in a couple of large spoons of the tamarind sauce - and also a generous handful of the pickled onions - the onions are bursting with the juice of the white wine vinegar that was used to pickle them - and together with the tamrind sauce - will provide the "sour" edge. Immediately add a teaspoon of Sugar and also the half-tin of chopped tomato and the coriander leaf. Let the pot simmer for 10 minutes more - and then let rest for 5 mins with the lid on.



It's done! Just serve up on a bed of freshly-cooked basmati rice! It sure was tasty - quite hot - but perfectly sweet/sour kind of hot. Delicious.

Recipe by Route 79
Route 79