Easy Asian Food Recipes: Chicken Vindaloo Recipe

Chicken Vindaloo

Moved beyond a series of soup recipes, now we are heading towards East Indian trail. So my dearest reader, are you ready to eye-feast with me this fiery hot, sweet and sour style curry?

I am putting this chicken Vindaloo at the centre of stage today with some tweaks to the original online recipe to suit my family's taste buds. With more touch of chilli powder and a bit of local sensation thrown in with lemongrass addition, the dish is sure to ruffle your features. You can adjust the amount of piquancy of your chicken Vindaloo according to your family's spiciness tolerance. Reduce chilli powder to achieve mild spicy curry if you don't like the fiery hot dish 'biting' you.

Contrast in textures and tastes, this Goan-originated, Vindaloo-styled chicken is a rich amalgam of evocative aromas and subtle blends of herbs and spices. The chicken tastes sublime with its inherent richness tempered by an aromatic marinade of herbs and spices such as cinnamon stick, cumin seeds, cardamon pods and cloves, garlic, ginger, black peppercorns and bird's eye chillies leading to a complex flavors that titillates our taste buds.

So has my choice of exerting effort on this slightly labor-extensive dish been rewarding? Definitely! If there's one thing that I can learn from cooking chicken Vindaloo is that preparing Indian dishes is not that intimidating.

Have you been sold on the zesty aromas, textures and tastes of chicken Vindaloo? If so, please help yourself to churn out this Indian-influenced dish with this Vindaloo recipe. Even if you aren't big into chicken, you can substitute with mutton or beef.

Ingredients :
3 skinless chicken breast fillets, cut into cubes or bite-sized pieces
2 tbsp of vegetable oil
7 garlic cloves, chopped
2 large onions, chopped
1 red chilli pepper, de-seeded and chopped
2 tsp of turmeric powder
3 tsp of chilli powder (or to taste)
1 tbsp of tomato puree
1 fresh tomato, chopped
120ml water
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
Fresh coriander leaves, chopped and set aside, to be sprinkled on top for garnishing purpose later
(Optional) 2 stalks of fresh lemongrass, cut and retain the lower 1/3 of portion, rest discard. Using a knife, smash the the lower 1/3 portion of lemongrass to expose partial of the flesh

Fresh ingredients : big onions, red chilli pepper, garlic, tomato, coriander leaves

Ingredients for spice paste mixture for chicken marinade :

1 tsp cumin seeds
5 cardamon pods
5 cloves
1 pcs cinnamon stick
6 black peppercorns
3 bird's eye chilli, chopped with seeds in
2.5cm (1 inch) of fresh root ginger, chopped
4 garlic cloves, skin peeled, chopped
3 tbsp of freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 tbsp of white wine vinegar

Spices : cinnamon stick, cardamon pods, cloves, cumin seeds, black peppercorns, bird's eye chilli, ginger, garlic

Method :

1. First, prepare spice paste for chicken marinade.

(i) Using a pestle and mortar, pound the cumin seeds, cardamon pods, cloves, cinnamon stick and black peppercorns. At the end, the only bits left are cardamon pod's shells which are rather hard to be thoroughly smashed even after painstaking bashings. Manually remove these cardamon pod shells.

Ingredients for spice paste mixture

Spices : before pounded using pestle and mortar

Spices : after pounded using pestle and mortar

(ii) Now add in the remaining ingredients (bird's eye chillies, ginger and garlic cloves) into the spice powder and pound together to form a fine paste. Take out the paste mixture to a bowl and add in 3 tbsp of freshly squeezed lemon juice and 2 tbsp of white wine vinegar. Stir well.

Note : Alternative of method (ii), you can use food processor or blender to make the paste mixture. Blend the spice powder (already pounded using pestle and mortar as in (i)) with the other paste ingredients (bird's eye chillies, ginger and garlic cloves) in a food processor with lemon juice and white wine vinegar until you obtain a fine paste. It's wise to automate this process instead of using pestle and mortar as I did.

Add in ginger, garlic cloves, bird's eye chillies into pounded spices and pound together

The resulted pounded spice paste mixture

2. Add the chicken to the bowl containing paste misture and toss well to coat the chicken pieces. Cover the bowl with cling film and let it stands in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours, or preferably overnight to ensure the chicken cubes absorb well all the spice marinade.

Marinate chicken cubes with spice paste mixture

3. When you are ready to cook, heat the vegetable oil in a large skillet and saute the garlic for roughly one minute. Add the chopped onions and the de-seeded red chilli pepper, stir well and wait until the onions are throroughly browned. Add the rest of the dried ground spices : 2 tsp turmeric powder, 3 tsp chilli powder, 1 tbsp tomato puree, 3 chopped bird's eye chillies, 1 tsp salt (or to taste) and some freshly ground black peppers. All heaped spoons except the turmeric powder, which should be just cover a flat teaspoon. Stir well for roughly one minute before adding the chopped tomatoes and 2 stalks of smashed lemongrass. Stir fry the mixture for about 5 minutes gently.

5. Add in the marinated chicken and continue to stir fry until the chicken is thoroughly coated in the mixture and cooked. It takes around 10 minutes.

6. Now pour in 120ml of water and bring to a boil, then reduce to low heat, cover with lid and simmer for 25 minutes until the sauce thickened. Check on and off if additional water is required to prevent scorching. 5 minutes before heat off, check the taste of the curry and add additional salt if necessary. Sprinkle a generous topping of coriander leaves for garnishing and serve hot with rice.