Cooking with Dr. Monkey

Today's episode: Goan style pork vindaloo.

I watched my new celebrity Indian cook girlfriend Anjum Anand make this dish the other night and it looked so good I gave it a whirl.

I started out by making the spice rub which consists of 1 tsp of cumin, 1 tsp coriander seed, 3/4 tablespoon of crushed black pepper, 2 green cardamon pods, a pinch of cinnamon, a big pinch of sea salt, and a pinch of ground clove. I mixed everything up and I crushed it all together. Once crushed and mixed I removed the hulls of the cardamon pods.

Next I peeled 7 cloves of garlic, peeled one and a half inches of ginger, and I slit, deseeded, and de-ribbed three jalapenos, this recipe calls for three red chili peppers but I couldn't find any so I used the jalapenos. I put the garlic, peppers, ginger into my chopper, which is a mini food processor, then I added three tbl spoons of white wine vinegar and I pulsed it all together.

Next I chopped up my one and a half pound pork roast into a little bigger than bite sized cubes and I rubbed the spice mixture on the meat.
Then I added the ginger/garlic/peppers/vinegar mixture and I sloshed the meat around to make sure it was all coated. Then I popped it into the fridge for a hour to let it marinate a bit.
Right before I took the meat out I sauteed a small white onion in four tbl spoons of canola oil in our Dutch oven pan. When the onion stated to turn golden brown I took it out and I began browning the meat. Once I browned it all I poured the rest of the marinade in and I put the onions back in and I let it cook on lowish/medium heat on the stove for about 45 minutes. I added just a little bit of water, it turns out you're not supposed to put in a lot of water, about enough to go halfway up the meat chunks, because what makes this dish authentic is the spices, the vinegar, and cooking it all in mostly it's own juices.
After it all cooked for about 45 minutes, and it's always better to err on the side of cooking it longer rather than less because you always want your pork to be fully cooked, I took it off the burner and I added some chopped cilantro leaves and I stirred them in. If you don't like cilantro, don't add any.
I served the pork vindaloo over rice and I steamed a bit of broccoli to go with it. After I tasted the sauce, I made some raita to go with the main dish. Raita is a condiment/sauce that's made with plain yogurt and chopped up fresh vegetables, I used finely chopped green onions, grape tomatoes, and some cilantro leaves. I mixed it all in with 3/4 cup yogurt and added about a quarter cup of cold water and mixed it in as well to make it more sauce-like.

The verdict: holy hell, it tasted great. It's hot but the heat of the jalapeno peppers didn't drown out all the other flavors. The meat was cooked to perfection and I could have even cooked it longer to make it even more tender. The raita added a cooling counterpoint to the heat and the fresh grape tomatoes with the green onions gave it a nice kick. This dish is everything I love about Indian food, it's got a ton of flavor and since I used an almost fat free cut of meat, it was pretty low in animal fat as well. I'll definitely make this again and next time I might make it with chicken or a trim cut of beef. Yeah, this one is a keeper.