Goan food is a genuine hybrid — Konkani coastal cooking transformed by four and a half centuries of Portuguese influence. The Portuguese introduced chillies, potatoes, tomatoes, cashews and vinegar to Goa (and through it to much of India), and the local cuisine absorbed them completely.
There are two distinct traditions: Goan Catholic cooking, which uses pork, beef, vinegar and Portuguese technique, and Goan Hindu (Saraswat) cooking, which is largely vegetarian and seafood-based, uses coconut and kokum, and avoids the vinegar and meat.
The essential dishes:
- Fish curry rice — the everyday Goan meal, a coconut-and-tamarind or kokum-based curry with the day's catch, over rice. This is what Goans actually eat, and it is excellent.
- Vindaloo — from the Portuguese carne de vinha d'alhos (meat in wine and garlic), adapted with palm vinegar and Kashmiri chillies. Traditionally pork. Note it is a vinegar-and-garlic dish, not merely the "hottest thing on the menu" as British curry houses have it.
- Xacuti — a complex curry with roasted coconut, poppy seed and a large number of spices, usually chicken or mutton
- Cafreal — green marinade of coriander, chilli and spices, typically chicken, with East African-Portuguese origins
- Sorpotel — a rich, vinegary pork dish traditionally including liver and offal, made for Christmas and celebrations. Improves over several days.
- Balchão — prawns or fish in a fiery, tangy dried-shrimp-and-chilli paste, essentially a pickle
- Recheado — whole fish, usually mackerel or pomfret, slit and stuffed with a red masala paste, then fried
- Ambot tik — a sour and spicy fish curry, no coconut
- Chorizo (Goan sausage) — heavily spiced, vinegar-cured pork sausage, quite unlike Spanish chorizo, often served in a pav
Seafood. Kingfish, pomfret, mackerel, prawns, crab, mussels and squid, all fresh. Beach shacks typically display the day's catch and cook it to order — grilled, tandoori or in curry.
Vegetarian Goan dishes — khatkhate (mixed vegetable stew), tondak, and various coconut-based preparations. Goan Hindu cuisine is well worth seeking out and is often overlooked by visitors.
Breads. Goa has a distinctive bread culture inherited from the Portuguese, unusual in India — poi (a soft wholewheat pocket bread), pao, and kankonn. The poder (baker) still cycles through Goan villages in the morning and evening with a horn.
Sweets:
- Bebinca — the classic Goan dessert, a layered pudding of coconut milk, egg yolk and sugar, baked one layer at a time, traditionally sixteen layers. Rich and time-consuming to make.
- Dodol — a dense coconut and jaggery sweet
- Serradura — a Portuguese-derived "sawdust pudding" of cream and crushed biscuit
Drinks:
- Feni — the local spirit, from cashew apple or coconut sap. Strong, distinctive, and an acquired taste. Usually drunk with lime soda.
- Urrak — the first distillation of cashew feni, lighter and available only in season (roughly March to May)
- Kokum sherbet — a cooling drink from the kokum fruit
- Beer is cheap in Goa because of low alcohol taxes
Where to eat. Beach shacks are the classic experience and the fish is usually excellent and fair value. For proper Goan home cooking, seek out the smaller village restaurants inland — Assagao, Siolim and the Salcete villages in the south — rather than the beachfront strips, where menus tend towards international tourist food.