Hot sauce vindaloo: updated

Ah, vindaloo.  My favorite Indian recipe and a recipe typically made very traditionally by restaurants, so very worth making yourself.  It doesn't take more than a half an hour (excluding marinading time).

I love Indian food and cook it all the time.  It is generally healthy, as it includes a lot of veggies and not a lot of animal fat.  I feel a bit like an emperor when I eat it, as it includes heavy amounts of spices that previously were outrageously expensive and only royalty could afford them (at least in Europe).  The spice trade literally drove the European exploration and colonization of the world.  The Dutch, Portuguese, English, and French established towns all over Africa and Asia with the sole purpose of provisioning ships on the way to and from the Far East to trade for spices.  Columbus braved the Atlantic not to explore, but to find a shorter route to acquire spices.  Cinnamon, black pepper, cloves, and nutmeg were the heavy hitters.  It's funny now that you see pepper on every table everywhere nowadays.

One factor that makes Indian food so special is the influence of foreign nations and foods.  From the north came Turkic muslim invaders (the Moguls) and from the coasts came Europeans.  I think most people know that India was ruled by Britain for many years, but few people know that Portugal had a colony on the west coast until the 1961.  This colony, Goa, gave rise to a wonderfully delicious blend of Portuguese and Indian cooking with the best known dish being vindaloo, combining Portuguese vinegar and pork with Indian chilis and spices.

A lot of restaurants will add cream and butter to their vindaloo and go easy on the vinegar and chilies.  While this is yummy, it really isn't authentic.  Vindaloo is vinegar, pork, cinnamon, cumin, ginger, garlic, and lots of dried chilies. This makes for a light, intensely flavored sauce.

In the recipe below I am replacing the vinegar and chilies with hot sauce.  I have adapted it from Raghavan Iyer's recipe in "660 Curries", my go to book for Indian cooking.  It is an awesome book.  His recipe calls for vinegar and 8 dried cayenne or Thai chilies if you want to reproduce it.

Note: vinegar will readily remove the seasoning from your pan, so be ready for this.  Typically, the next time I stir fry anything, the seasoning is reapplied, so I don't worry too much about it.  I just have to remember that my pan won't be functioning optimally.  If you are concerned about this, use a non-reactive or non-stick pan.  I would avoid cast iron unless you want a mega-supplement of iron.

Hot Sauce Vindaloo

1/2 cup hot sauce
1 Tbsp cumin, ground
1 Tbsp peeled and shredded ginger (I use a cheese grater)
8 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
1 cinnamon stick, ground
1 lb diced pig flesh
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp turmeric
2 Tbsp cooking oil, such as canola
2 Tbsp cilantro, finely chopped

1) Mix together cinnamon, hot sauce, cumin, ginger, salt, turmeric, and garlic.
2) Blend pork and sauce and allow to marinade 30 minutes to overnight.
3) Heat oil over high heat
4) Fry the pork and marinade until the liquid is cooked off, ~10 minutes. I play with with the heat here and keep stirring.  At first, I crank up the heat to get rid of the liquid, then turn it down when I get close.  Be careful to just get a crust at the bottom of the pan and to turn your crust into ash.
5) Deglaze the pan with 1/2 cup of water, bring to a boil, and simmer until the pork is tender, ~15 minutes.
6) Add cilantro and stir to mix.
7) Served over long grain rice, like basmati.  You might need a lot of rice to temper the heat of the dish.

Verdict: It is good and tastes about right, but not as spicy as vindaloo usually is, even though my hot sauce is pretty hot.  Next time, I might try some death sauce and see how it tastes.