Vindaloo

Vindaloo is pork simmered in a fiery, vinegar-sharp chilli sauce. It is Goa's Portuguese-descended curry, and the name itself gives away the ancestry — it comes from vinha d'alhos, a Portuguese wine-and-garlic marinade the dish only loosely resembles today.

What it really is

Pork is marinated in a thick paste of dried red chillies, garlic and ginger blended with vinegar rather than the citrus or tamarind most other Indian curries use for sourness — that vinegar is the ingredient the Portuguese brought with them, and it's what gives vindaloo its unusually sharp, tangy edge alongside the heat. The marinated meat simmers slowly until tender, the sauce reducing into something dark, thick and genuinely hot rather than merely warm.

The vinegar is not optional or interchangeable. Swap it for lime or tamarind and the dish reads as a different, more typically Indian curry; the sharper, more acidic bite of vinegar is what makes vindaloo recognisably itself.

How it is served

• In a bowl with steamed rice, the standard pairing for its intensity.
• With extra bread on the side for guests who want to cut the heat.
• Marked clearly as one of the hottest dishes on the menu, since it's genuinely hotter than most curries sharing the same menu.

How to write it on the menu

• Flag the sulphites the vinegar may carry, depending on the type used.
• Rate the heat honestly and prominently; vindaloo has a reputation to live up to, and undercutting it disappoints guests who ordered it for exactly that reason.
• Say if a chicken or vegetable version is available, since pork isn't an option for every guest.