Gaboli Fish Roe Vindaloo (Palla Fish Roe Curry)

Every monsoon season, as soon as the palla fish appear in the market, mom stocks up on gaboli – and a good portion of it gets set aside for vindaloo. Gaboli vindaloo, or fish roe vindaloo, is one of those East Indian dishes that sounds unfamiliar to most people outside our community, but the moment someone tastes it once, they want to eat it again and again.

Gaboli is the Marathi name for fish roe from any fish, but we generally use it to refer to the eggs of the palla fish (also called hilsa or ilish). While some people treat roe as fish offal and pass on it, we’ve always considered it a delicacy just like the caviar you get from sturgeon.

The roe of the palla is especially prized; the Bengalis love it so much that prices in Bengal are much higher than ours in Mumbai. This dish is also in our cookbook Jevayla Ye: Everyday East Indian Recipes, which won Best Indigenous People Cookbook in the World at the Gourmand Awards 2025, so you know it’s the real thing.

Step-by-step Pics for Making to make the vindaloo

If you’ve made fried gaboli before, you already know how good fish roe is. But if you want it to last a little longer, try mom’s roe vindaloo recipe. The roe is boiled first, cut into pieces, and set aside.

The vindaloo masala used here is the classic East Indian version that we use for pork vindyal, chicken indyal, or fish vindaloo: dried Kashmiri red chillies, cumin, garlic, turmeric, and vinegar, ground to a paste and cooked on a slow flame till the house smells tangy.

Finally, the roe pieces are added to the cooked vindaloo masala to finish in 5 minutes. Remember, not to add it earlier, or your roe pieces will turn into roe mush. It happens.

In case you want to pretend some veggies are the recipe, you can also add potatoes to the vindaloo. We usually cut about two or three potatoes into eight quarters, and add them in. They can either be boiled separately and added later or added in with the masala at the start. These potatoes also serve another function, namely, reducing the spice in the curry, and not making you reach for the cold water a dozen times.

Anyway, the end result is a tangy, deeply spiced vindaloo curry that goes perfectly with plain white rice. It’s literally one of those dishes where you want extra rice on the table before you even sit down.

If you want to try gaboli other ways, have a look at our fried gaboli recipe – simple, spiced, and one of the most popular fish recipes on the site. We’ve also got a full guide to buying, boiling and storing fish roe at home so you can have gaboli ready any time of year. And for more fish roe recipes from around the world, this roundup is a good place to start.