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| Curry tree with fruits |
Curry powder is a British invention to imitate the flavour of Indian
cooking with minimal effort. Some curry powders, or so the books tell, indeed
contain curry leaves, but probably only for historic or linguistic reasons,
since dried curry leaves lose their fragrance within days. A typical curry
powder should derive its taste mainly from roasted cumin, roasted coriander,
black pepper, chiles
and roasted fenugreek. Other typical Indian spices
often contained in curry powders are dried ginger,
ajwain and celery
(as a substitute for Indian radhuni), furthermore salt, flour
from lightly toasted lentils and aromatic Moghul spices in variable amounts
(cinnamon, cloves,
green cardamom,
Indian bay-leaves). The yellow colour stems from
turmeric.
I think it's pretty unreasonable to put spices with absolutely no tradition
in India into a spice blend that claims to have an “Indian flavour”,
but nevertheless galangale,
caraway, allspice,
and zedoary are occasionally listed as ingredients
in curry powders. Remember that since curry powder is not a
traditional recipe, there is little consensus about what should go into it,
and anyone is free to sell his own creation.
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| Curry tree in full flower |
Observant readers will notice that the recipe for curry powder outlined in the previous paragraph appears like a compromise of the Northern Indian garam masala and the Southern Indian sambaar podi (see cumin for both mixtures). Anyway, you cannot represent the large spectrum of Indian cooking styles in one single spice mixture; Indians prepare their mixtures separately for each dish and usually do not store them, thus guaranteeing the unique flavour of each recipe. Curry powder, therefore, belongs more to British or international cuisine than to India; anyone trying to cook authentic Indian recipes should stick to traditional Indian spice mixtures or, even better, single spices. Curry powder has been introduced to some Far Eastern countries in the past, and today plays but a minor rôle as a flavouring in China, Indonesia and, above all, Vietnam.
In Indian cuisines, curry leaves are used fresh; for some recipes, the leaves should be oven-dried or toasted immediately before usage. Another common technique is short frying in butter or oil (see ajwain for this procedure) . Since South Indian cuisine is dominantly vegetarian, curry leaves seldom appear in non-vegetarian food; the main applications are thin lentil or vegetable curries (sambaar [சாம்பார்]) and stuffings for the crispy samosa [समोसा]. Because of their soft texture, they are never removed before serving, but can be eaten without any hazard. See coconut for the Southern Indian recipe bese bele.
In Sri Lanka, the delicious chicken and beef curries are flavoured with curry leaves; the leaves are furthermore used for kottu roti [කෝත්තු රෝටි], vegetables and sliced bread which are quickly fried together. Sri Lankan cooking is very hot and pungent due to almost excessive use of chiles, but also very aromatic. Compared to Indians, Sri Lankans eat more meats and less dairy products; meats and vegetables are often cooked in gravies based on water or thin coconut milk instead of yoghurt.
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| Fresh fruits of the Curry tree |
The typical Sri Lankan flavour is due to heavy toasting some spices (cumin, coriander, black mustard, fenugreek) until they reach a rather dark colour; it is often said that Sri Lankan curries have a “darker” or “browner” flavour than Indian curries. Sri Lankan cooks often use aromatic spices native to the island (cinnamon, cardamom) and fresh leaves (curry leaves, Pandanus leaves and lemon grass; the latter two are not in common use in India).
Curry leaves may be kept in the refrigerator for some time, but are better kept frozen; do not remove them from the branches before usage!
The term curry is applied inflationarily to many dishes of Far Eastern origin. As shown above, in its true home South India it means a thin, spicy vegetable stew. In Thailand, though, any food cooked in coconut milk is called a curry (gaeng); the term is similarly used in Vietnam, where curries (ca ri [ca ri], see rice paddy herb) are indeed often flavoured with Anglo-Indian curry powder. Laksa, a soupy noodle dish from Malaysia and Singapore, is often referred to as “curried noodles” or the like, probably, because it contains coconut and derives the familiar yellow colour from turmeric (see Vietnamese coriander for details about laksa).
In Burma, however, a completely different definition of “curry” is in use:
Burmese “curries” owe their flavour to a fried paste of ground
onions and other spices (see
onion for details). Lastly, in Indonesia,
any spicy food may be termed a curry (kari
in Indonesian). Sometimes, one even hears about Ethiopian
(see long pepper) or Caribbean “curries”,
whatever this may mean (except, perhaps, the least common denominator of all
those: Spiciness).
