The atlas · A cuisine · Goa — the Konkan coast of western India

Goan

Also Konkani, Goan Catholic, Goan Saraswat
One of Indian cooking's regional kitchens · all 7 side by side

Coconut, chilli and vinegar: a coastal kitchen where Konkani fish curry and rice meet pork, bread and sweets from four and a half centuries of Portuguese rule.

Where it comes from

Goa is a small strip of the Konkan coast, and its everyday meal is xitt-kodi — red rice and fish curry, made with coconut, chilli and something sour: kokum, tamarind or raw mango. Coconut palms give oil, milk, toddy, vinegar and feni, and the sea and backwaters give fish, prawns, crab and clams.

The Portuguese took Goa in 1510 and ruled it until 1961, when India took it over. They brought chilli, potato, tomato and cashew from the Americas, bread baked in wood-fired ovens, and a taste for pork cooked in wine or vinegar. The areas they held longest — Bardez, Tiswadi and Salcete, the Old Conquests — became largely Catholic, and their kitchens took in those flavours: vindaloo, sorpotel, chouriço and layered bebinca.

The inland and northern talukas, the New Conquests, came under Portuguese rule only in the eighteenth century and stayed largely Hindu. Their Saraswat and other Hindu kitchens cook plenty of fish but no beef or pork, and lean on coconut, kokum and tirphal, a peppery berry. Goans of every faith share the fish curry, and many share the festivals and sweets too.

Where in it

  1. Bardez and MapusaThe Catholic villages of the north coast, and Mapusa's Friday market, where strings of red chouriço sausage hang beside heaps of chillies, spices and vinegar.Goan sausageCafreal
  2. Salcete and MargaoThe southern heartland of Goan Catholic cooking around Margao, with its old houses, feasts and the dishes of Christmas and weddings: vindaloo, sorpotel, balchao and bebinca.VindalooSorpotelPrawn balchãoBebinca
  3. Ponda and the inland talukasThe New Conquests: temple country around Ponda and the hills beyond, where largely Hindu kitchens cook fish, vegetables and coconut with kokum and tirphal, and khatkhate for festivals.KhatkhateGoan fish curryXacuti

How it cooks

Grinding in vinegar
Dried chillies and whole spices ground to a paste with toddy vinegar instead of water — the base of vindaloo, sorpotel and recheado.
Roasting coconut
Grated coconut and whole spices dry-roasted until deep brown, then ground — what makes xacuti dark and nutty.
Souring
Kokum, tamarind, raw mango or vinegar in almost every curry, to cut the coconut.
Keeping
Vinegar and spice preserve: sorpotel and balchao are made days ahead and said to taste better for it.
Layering
Bebinca is built layer by layer, each grilled from above before the next is poured.

Always in the kitchen

coconutcoconut oiltoddy vinegarkokumtamarindKashmiri and Byadgi chilliesgarlicgingercumin seedblack peppercornclovecinnamonjaggerytirphalred boiled ricefeni

Cook from it

Tonight, with what's good in October

Its classics

GoanVindalooPork marinated in a paste of dried red chillies, garlic and spice ground in vinegar, then cooked slowly until sharp, rich and deep red.No one here has made it yetGoanXacutiChicken or mutton in a dark, complex sauce of grated coconut and a long list of whole spices, all roasted until brown and ground together.No one here has made it yetGoanCafrealChicken marinated in a bright green paste of coriander, green chilli, garlic, ginger, spice and lime or vinegar, then pan-fried until charred at the edges.No one here has made it yetGoanPrawn balchãoPrawns cooked in a fiery, sweet-sour red paste of chilli, garlic and vinegar until thick — half curry, half pickle, and keeps for weeks.No one here has made it yetGoanSorpotelPork and pork liver boiled, diced small and cooked in a hot, sharp sauce of chilli, spice and vinegar — a Christmas and wedding dish, made days ahead.No one here has made it yetGoanGoan fish curryFish simmered in a coconut sauce ground with red chillies and coriander seed, soured with kokum or tamarind — eaten with red rice every day in Goa.No one here has made it yetGoanBebincaA tall cake of many thin layers — coconut milk, egg yolks, sugar and flour, with ghee between them — each baked under a grill before the next is poured.No one here has made it yetGoanGoan sausageCubes of fatty pork cured with chilli, garlic, spice and vinegar, stuffed into casings, dried in the sun and smoked — then fried with onion and eaten in bread.No one here has made it yetGoanKhatkhateA thick stew of many vegetables and toor dal in coconut, soured with tamarind and sharpened with tirphal — the dish of Goan Hindu festivals.No one here has made it yet

Cooked here

No one here has cooked Goan yet.