Topic: Vindaloo - vinegar, lime, or lemon?

[Edwin Catflap]

Guys

What is your preferred in a vindaloo, vinegar (what sort) or lime or lemon juice. I know traditionally it should be wine from the Portuguese but what is the mostly used BIR choice?

Ed

[fried]

I'm still not really sure in Bir terms what exactly a vindaloo and for that matter what a Madras really consists of. I use fresh lemon in a Madras but if I were to use the same in my vindaloo it would only differ in the amount of chilli powder used. I can't see lime being used in Birs for cost reasons. I've used vinegar and had good results but if I'm just making one dish I just use my Madras recipe and up the chilli content.

I know it's been debated before but I've eaten so many variations of the two over the years that it's hard to have a real idea of what is used in Birs.

[curryhell]

Just to confuse things a little, one of the kitchens i visited years ago to watch my phall being cooked, added some PLJ instead of lemon juice or dressing.  For those that aren't familiar with this, its a lemon based cordial 

[Stephen Lindsay]

It seems to me a Vindaloo is indeed just a Madras with more chilli powder, and the addition of some cubes of cooked potato. I tend to use lemon juice but will revert to vinegar if I run out.

[artistpaul]

I use the vinegar from a jar of pickled silver onions or gherkins to great effect

[chewytikka]

Vindaloo.
No Lemon, Black Pepper, ground Birdseye Chilli and ASDA Cider Vinegar, does it for me.

[goncalo]

It's interesting that you bring up this question, as I discussed it elsewhere recently.

I've made 2 vindaloos recently using C2G's recipe and I ordered a vindaloo from restaurant where I can sense the use of vinegar, although mild enough that it's strong flavour notes are not highly noticeable. My take is that any acid that you would use to tenderize meat is likely to do a great work. I'm sure this is one of those areas where it's pointless discussing which is correct, mainly because a number of chefs will do it differently, CH's example is quite evident of it. I have bought a bottle of vinegar and I intend to try it in my next vindaloo/phal, if I feel the smell/taste of vinegar too strong, I'll probably not look paste the lime/lemon for this dish again.

Some other alternatives might be: pure citric acid, jif (watered down lemon juice/citric acid), tamarind sauce.

[fried]

I cooked traditional style vindaloo a long while ago and still remember the vinegar being over-powering. It could have just been the recipe I was using, but it's another thing I want to revisit one of these days.

[goncalo]

I cooked traditional style vindaloo a long while ago and still remember the vinegar being over-powering. It could have just been the recipe I was using, but it's another thing I want to revisit one of these days.

Traditional vindaloo should be cooked with wine, not vinegar. Could this be your issue, or did you write vinegar when you meant wine?

[fried]

I did say traditional 'style' and the recipe I followed comes from one of the most authentic bibles of Indian cuisine, namely 'The best of Sainsbury's oriental cooking', so there is a good chance that it may not be 100% authentic!

I know that the recipe originates from a Portugese dish using wine but I'm sure that many traditional recipes now use vinegar or maybe wine vinegar. I know a couple I was thinking of trying from Vahchef use vinegar, this maybe for religious reasons I don't know. I'll certainly being doing further research.