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Pork Vindaloo

A spicy pork stew marinated in vinegar and spices, then simmered until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Turmeric and cumin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,698 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Pork Vindaloo

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pork

  1. Cut the pork into large squares.

  2. Wash the pork thoroughly in vinegar.

  3. Rub the pork with garlic, dry ginger, turmeric, peppercorns, coriander seeds, cumin seeds, and dry salt.

  4. Steep the pork in good English vinegar for 24 hours.

Cook

  1. Melt mustard oil in an earthen pot.

  2. Fry the condiments in the oil.

  3. Add the pork and the vinegar it was steeped in.

  4. Add more salt, a little more vinegar, bay leaves, and peppercorns.

  5. Simmer until the meat is tender.

  6. Remove from heat and let it cool completely.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Turmeric + cumintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,698 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Coriander + cumintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,866 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Ginger + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Ginger + coriandertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Garlic + cumintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,082 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Fat pork
Provides richness and fat that becomes tender and flavourful during long simmering.
Vinegar
Acidity tenderises the meat during steeping and sharpens the finished sauce.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma that mellows and deepens during frying and simmering.
Mustard oil
Carries and blooms the spices, adding pungent flavour and aroma to the dish.
Turmeric
Adds earthy colour and a mild bitter note to the spice base.

The step that matters

Simmer until the meat is tender. Fat pork needs slow, gentle simmering so connective tissue breaks down and the meat becomes tender. Too hard a boil can toughen the meat and reduce the sauce unevenly.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, vinegar, garlic, ginger, turmeric, coriander, cumin):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Broccolifits about as well
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, vinegar, garlic, ginger, turmeric, coriander, cumin. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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