Chicken Vindaloo Recipe

I always thought that vindaloo was supposed to follow 16 pints and a long night out. My only real experience of this, until recently, was when our youngest was a week and a half overdue. As a last ditch attempt to help nature take it’s course we hit the local curry house and slowly worked our way through a chicken vindaloo – as expected it was damn hot but really quite a nice experience.

Then, a couple of months ago we had a friend over for the night and amid a haze of beer, vodka and tequila we ordered a chicken vindaloo from a Winchester take away called Balaka. I was surprised to find that this time it actually wasn’t that hot, but contained a complex and exciting range of flavours.

Last night, we put together a chicken vindaloo based on this recipe by Das Sreedharan…I hope you like it as much as we did.

Chicken Vindaloo Recipe Ingredients

Chicken Vindaloo Marinade:-

• 1tsp cumin seeds
• 4 cardamom pods
• 4 cloves
• 1 inch cinnamon sticks
• 5 black peppercorns
• 1 chilli (we used a scotch bonnet but normal green chilli is fine)
• About a thumb of root ginger
• 4 garlic cloves
• 3 tbsp lemon juice

You will also need:-

• 500g (1lb) chicken breast (chopped)
• a dash of vegetable oil (or ghee if you’ve got some)
• 5 garlic cloves
• 2 onions (finely chopped)
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 1 tsp chilli powder
• 1 tsp tomato puree
• 3 tomatoes (roughly chopped)
• 3 tbsp wine vinegar

Chicken Vindaloo Method:-

First of all make the marinade. Simply chuck the ingredients into a blender and blend into a paste. Put it in a bowl and mix in with the chicken, then cover with cling film and stick it in the fridge for a couple of hours.

Once you’ve done this fry the garlic and onion until the onion turns a golden brown. Add the turmeric, chilli powder, tomato puree, tomatoes and vinegar and stir it all in.

Next add the chicken and fry for about 10 minutes. Finally add around 300 ml of water and simmer for about half an hour.

That’s it!! I hope you enjoy it.