Mother's RECIPEgoan Vindaloo

For many years I've tried every verify of canned and jar curry sauce and paste out there hoping for a quick solution to the real deal. Just when I though I had found the very worst of the bunch (Looking at you, Trader Joe) I was ready to give up. Then, I discovered a local Indian grocery store across town that carried these packets of spice mix. To my sheer delight and surprise, this was exactly what I was looking for. The warm, toasted cardamom and turmeric embraced in a tangy vinegar-lite gravy. Slow simmered for about 15m for the perfect silky consistency, the first taste and I knew I'd had found exactly what I was looking for. It's spicy! Incredibly spicy in the way a real vindaloo should be. I look forward to trying the other different kinds of Mother's Recipe. If they're half as good as this vindaloo, we'll be in good shape.

Some background details, here:Paneer vindaloo over rice - cranked up to an extreme spice level - is my favorite Indian dish. If possible, I would order it every single time that I go to an Indian restaurant. My wife, she tells me that I am a little obsessed with it. You might even say that I’m a connoisseur of paneer vindaloo. Unfortunately, it is also a fairly rare find on menus. My wife and I just moved from the Ann Arbor, MI area (where it is a staple at Madras Masala) to the Little India area of North Chicago. Hard though it may be to believe, we cannot seem find this dish at any Indian or Goan restaurant in all of metropolitan Chicago or the Chicago suburbs.With that in mind, we purchased Mother’s Vindaloo Spice Mix this weekend along with a block of paneer cheese, and I decided to use the mix to prepare it myself. I’d never heard of the brand, knew absolutely nothing about it. When I first saw it on the shelf, I believed that it was a powder.It is not that - not exactly. It actually arrives in the form of a dark red paste. The mix is relatively easy to prepare: you simply use a fork and a bowl to blend said paste with two cups of water, saute the meat or veggies or paneer in a sauce pan, and then you add the mixed sauce. It’s pretty unbelievable how it all comes together.I can only rate the product according to my experience.In terms of quality, if the vindaloo at restaurants such as Madras Masala qualifies as a 9.5 or a 10, I would rate mother’s vindaloo mix at about a 6.5 or perhaps a 7. The flavor is above average; it has some of the spice complexity and tang of restaurant-grade vindaloo. It is good if not fantastic; for a store-bought mix that runs about $2.50, it’s probably as good as you’re going to find. What it lacks is the vitality of fresh cut tomatoes and onions and freshly-poured vinegar, although I feel like that’s inevitable with a mix. If I wasn’t exactly blown away, I will certainly plan to purchase some the next time that I go to the market.