Lamb vindaloo recipe

Make this delicious lamb vindaloo recipe, so you will have cooked meat ready for the next few days and almost no dishes to clean up.

Although vindaloo recipes are Indian, they were brought to India by the Portuguese. This original Portuguese dish was called "Carne de Vinha d’ Alhos" where carne translates to meat, vinha stands for wine and alhos for garlic.

The authentic Portuguese dish was served on special occasions, made with pork or rabbit, preserved in red wine and prepared with extra garlic, ginger, pepper and coconutmilk.

Since we Indians don’t have wine in our traditional kitchen, we substitute with other sour ingredients like tamarind, yogurt or vinegar.

Ingredients for the lamb vindaloo recipe

Lamb:

• 3 pound (1.5kg) lamb meat for stew
• some lamb bones

For the meat marinade:

• 4 tablespoon olive oil
• 3 tablespoon tamarind juice
• 1 to 2 tablespoon wine vinegar, cider vinegar or balsamic vinegar: all but the chemical white vinegar
• 1 tablespoon of soy sauce

For the homemade curry paste:

• 2 tablespoon olive oil
• half an onion
• garlic cloves: the more the merrier (8)
• an equal amount of fresh ginger

For stewing the meat:

• olive oil
• 2 onions
• 1 long, red chili
• about 1 pint (500 ml) boiling water: when you have a water kettle, boil 1 liter
• Spices to taste:
• 4 teaspoon paprika powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
• 1 to 2 teaspoon red chili powder
• 1 teaspoon cuminpowder
• 1 teaspoon mustardseedpowder

How to make this authentic lamb vindaloo recipe

The steps are easy, like with any festive western stew, but with Asian ingredients:

• first marinate the meat
• after that: saute onions
• we are Indian so we add the curry paste
• spice the meat and add to brown
• add water and simmer till ready (westerners would add wine, or beer in stead of water)

Step by step recipe:

1. Make sure you or your butcher cut the meat into almost 1 inch (2 cm) cubes.
2. Mix the ingredients for the marinade together in a zipper bag, add in the meat and bones, shake it a bit and marinate overnight in the fridge or from morning till evening at room temperature.
3. Before you start your actual cooking, take out your meat from the marinate and let it drip using a sieve. Make sure not to throw away the marinade!
4. Blend the ingredients for the curry paste in a blender or use a mortar and pestle.
5. In your broadest stewing pot with thick bottom, heat up some olive oil, slice the onions and saute for 5 to 10 minutes: do stir so nothing gets burned.
6. Stir in the curry paste and add more oil if needed. Lower the heat (you don’t want to burn any garlic) and let it saute for a few minutes until the flavors fill your kitchen.
7. Meanwhile cover the meat with the dry spices.
8. Put the onions and paste to the side of your pot, add more oil when needed, put the fire a bit higher and brown the meat in the middle of your pot. Wait 2 minutes and turn the meat and repeat this until all sides of the meat are browned (this will take all in all about 8 minutes)
9. Add the bones, add enough water to cover the meat, bring to a boil and simmer (pot partly covered so the sauce can reduce a bot). Cook until the lamb is tender, which will take about half an hour.
10. Taste! Add more salt when needed. If too sour: stir in some brown sugar. When not sour enough, add vinegar or serve with plain, white yogurt.
11. Serve this lamb vindaloo recipe with Indian bread (naan), crusty western bread (ciabatta or baguette) or with basmati rice.

Do you feel like enjoying more easy yet delicious Indian dishes? Then get started with these 1000 proven Indian recipes.