Sunday, November 27, 2011

What is Vindaloo.......

Vindaloo is an Indian curry dish from the region of Goa. It is popular globally in its Anglo-Indian form as a staple of curry house menus, often renowned as a particularly spicy dish, though it is not necessarily always the hottest available. The name Vindaloo is derived from the Portuguese dish "Carne de Vinha d' Alhos", which is a dish of meat, usually pork, with wine and garlic. The dish was originally modified by the substitution of vinegar for the wine, and the addition of red Kashmir chillies (not as spicy but abundant in colour). The dish evolved into the vindaloo curry dish in Goa, with the addition of plentiful amounts of traditional spice and using palm vinegar instead of red wine. Alternate terms are vindalho or vindallo. Restaurants often serve this dish with chicken or lamb sometimes mixed with potatoes. Traditional vindaloos do not include potatoes, the discrepancy arising because the word  "aloo" means "potato" in Hindi.

Vindaloo is a popular dish in many parts of India.
In eastern states of India viz. Orissa and West Bengal, the same dish (not referred as Vindaloo) is prepared in marriage parties as well as in home food. The idea behind adding potatoes in lamb curry is that lamb meat is costlier than chicken in India (three times costlier than chicken), hence people add potatoes to have more quantity and to make the curry thicker and tastier. According to folklore, a cook added too much salt to the lamb curry by mistake. To balance the salt quantity in the curry, he added some boiled potatoes. Since then, it has become a practice to add potatoes to goat curry or lamb curry in Orissa and West Bengal.

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