Robbo, you can attach files just below the text entry box and both .doc and .pdf are accepted.  You could be pleased with Rik's recipe. He does some really good stuff (recent Chinese curry paste and follow up beef curry is amazingly good).  I for one will be interested to learn how his vindaloo stacks up compared to your goal.

It is odd that Vindaloo is typically considered a hot dish and Kashmiri Chilli a non-heating chilli used essentially for colour, and yet this recipe by Nik Sharma uses 15 x KRC and no other.  My experience with Kashmiri Chilli is that they do impart considerable heat, for my palate anyway, albeit not on the level of other varieties.  Several other videos I have seen also use a fair quantity of whole dried Kashmiris that are deseeded and soaked either in water or in one instance warm vinegar.  Some of these also use additional hot chillis or powders. 

By his own conversion, as noted in the comments, 4 whole dried KRC is equal to about 1 TBSP of powder so his recipe would call for nearly 4 TBSP of powder. Either way it is something I would need to do a very small sample dish to test before I went ahead and made the whole thing.

I wouldn't think that typical BIR method uses whole dried chillis unless the establishment goes to the effort of using them to make a "Vindaloo Sauce" specifically for the purpose.  I would imagine that a simplified method, such as Syed's powders and water is a more likely approach in a BIR setting.

Robbo, another direction possibly worth exploring, if you haven't already, is to have a look at Syed's Chicken Tikka Vindaloo.  You may recall that Syed contributed here on the forum briefly, and his "authentic BIR Chef" personality proved to be quite informative.  He uses a very simple vindaloo paste made by dissolving paprika and chilli powder in a cup of water as a substitute for part of the base gravy and reduces the base gravy accordingly.  The potency of the paste is determined by the cook / diner.  His dry roasted mixed powder was a new idea at the time, but it did work, and his dishes are very tasty.  I still regularly cook his chicken tikka, but I see no reason why you couldn't just make this with pre-cooked chicken instead.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0nrzAIa5QQ

Note the complete absence of any sour, acidic or bittering ingredient. No vinegar, tamarind or lemon juice. No Worcestershire sauce or coffee granules.  However, it does have potato.  Is it a vindaloo?

I hope it helps Phil. Please do inform of your opinion once you tried it.

There is only one thing about Indian dishes that is consistent and that is the inconsistency.  I found several instances yesterday of the production of a Vindaloo sauce which can then be used to make either Vindaloo or Madras by simply adjusting the amount used as well as using more or less other chilli addition. Other than that, the dishes are the same.

I have often seen reference to the use of the words Madras and Vindaloo to describe the heat level rather than to define a different dish, but I have no doubt you have a basis for describing them in that way.  Yet, it would seem that it is a BIR thing to simply say Madras is 2 measures of chilli and Vindaloo is 3.

I reviewed the ingredient lists for Vindaloo in 3 recipe books yesterday and they are nothing alike. Another  book called it Portuguese Pork and it is a boiled dish, which is perhaps not Vindaloo at all.  As for restaurant  Vindaloo sauce, I found Imran's Kitchen method and the subsequent Madras using it very likely to be a reliable possibility.

Another example of bit rot. So many threads are becoming useless and for some reason, chewy's posts are smashed. Does anybody have the OP for this?

What the rest of the thread tells me though, is that BIR Vindaloo is all about chilli heat, in which case I will be concentrating on traditional Vindaloo.

I came to this thread as it was started by Robbo141 and I wanted to ask about his search for the (his) Vindaloo.  I'm finding big chunks of posts missing all over the forum these days.

Pushing on though, Robbo, what is it about the Vindaloo you remember that eludes you?  I've been looking into quite a few recipes and videos over the last few days and while there are differences, there are also a lot of similarities.  It isn't a dish I cook, but I have done traditional Pork Vindaloo in the past as it was my late father-in-law's favourite dish.

Clearly the BIR (base gravy) method is different to the traditional, but the idea is to achieve the same dish in a different way.  It appears to me that the key will be in getting the Vindaloo paste down.  You can either adopt the BIR notion that Vindaloo is just Madras with extra chilli powder, or you can look into the more traditional paste made from base ingredients for the express purpose of making "Vindaloo".

Sorting the myth from fact. Portuguese in origin is probable. Vindaloo for wine or wine vinegar, maybe. Aloo for potato, probably not and this appears to be a BIR thing as it isn't in the traditional dishes I've seen.

How far off Vindaloo nirvana have you reached?  What was the closest you've come?  I'm going to give a few recipes a crack to see if I can find the fascination this dish attracts. Apparently, it is meant to be deliciously tasty, tangy and spicy and not simply ridiculously blisteringly hot.  I can live with the former but have no interest in painful food.

Phil, this might be worth a try.
https://japan.recipetineats.com/japanese-fried-chicken-karaage-chicken/

This lady's daughter, Nagi, runs an amazing website, Recipe Tin Eats. They do good food, well researched and developed over many hours of trials and testing.

I'm sure it has uses George, and I do occasionally use it, but I just don't come across many recipes I cook that require it.  When I do use it, I really doubt it is an essential (in my dishes anyway).  If the recipe calls for it, I'll go and pick a sprig, but it isn't that often.

Good to see you back Bob-A-Job.