You only need one pot for this, so use one that’s big enough to hold all your vindaloo’s ingredients. I used a big, cast-iron Dutch oven with a tight-fitting lid. A big, saucepan with a good lid will be just as good.
So, set your big pot onto a medium-high heat and add the coconut oil and butter. As soon as the buttery oil starts foaming, stir in the onions and drop the heat to medium-low. You want to gently fry the onions so that they soften and begin to pick up a pale golden color all over. With a few watchful stirs, that will take about 7 minutes on that medium-low heat.
Stir in the garlic and keep frying for another 2 minutes. The onions will darken a little more as you fry them with the garlic – that’s grand.
Now add the halved cherry tomatoes and let the whole lot fry with a few encouraging stirs for about 5 minutes until the tomatoes soften and begin to lose their body.
Once the tomatoes have softened, stir in the chilies and ginger and fry for another minute.
Now add the pork and all its marinade. Give the pot a thorough stir so everything gets mixed together, and then stir in the tamarind paste (together with all the water in which you dissolved it), the jaggery or palm sugar, and salt.
Drop the heat to low, cover the pot and let it simmer gently for 60 minutes. You’re aiming to keep the pot just barely bubbling at that slow simmer, so check that keeps happening and stir the pot to prevent the sauce from sticking. There’s not a lot of liquid in the sauce, so be careful to maintain a slow, gentle simmer beneath the lid.
After 60 minutes, remove the lid, and let the pot simmer on its low heat for another 30 minutes. This will help thicken the sauce even more – but it does mean you need to give the pot a few stirs, making sure that nothing sticks to the base.
That’s it. Your vindaloo is done and is ready to be served.