The Process

We start by crushing, mincing and dicing all our fresh Australian herbs and vegetables, delivered fresh from the local markets.

Once the ingredients are prepared, we put a large pan to the stove and add mustard oil, heating it until it’s smoking hot. We then add handfuls of curry leaves and a large amount of cinnamon, followed by onions, sea salt and butter. The onions caramelise quickly in the heat of the oil and the smell takes over the kitchen!

We add the rest of the fresh ingredients, including ginger and garlic to this delightfully pungent pan, along with Latasha’s secret mix of ground spices. Once these are combined completely we then add a balanced mix of vinegar, raw sugar and freshly made garam masala.

At this point, the air is thick and heavy with the aroma of onions, curry leaves, cinnamon and chilli. We can’t take our eyes of the paste for a second because it’s so thick. We simmer, stir, taste and repeat. Eventually the colour changes and salt and spice is adjusted until it’s perfect – knowing that the flavours will further mature once bottled.

Heat: Hot

Making it milder: This can be made  milder by adding more fresh crushed onions, garlic and ginger at the start of the dish and more vinegar and jaggery.  Apple cider vinegar can tone the spice down further than ordinary white vinegar or coconut vinegar. In addition (although this is not done traditionally) it does work very well if you add 2 tablespoons of whipped yogurt or coconut cream to the paste. Do this carefully with a little at a time to avoid curdling and it will turn your vindaloo paste to a vindaloo sauce with a much reduced heat but still packed full of flavour.

Making it hotter: It’s easy to make our vindaloo hotter. Cook the dish with splash of our chilli oil, some extra dry chillies, chilli flakes, birds eyes chillies or just regular sliced fresh chillies.