Curry tonight

Tonight we’re having a chicken curry, made by Bari from his own blend of spices and no doubt served with rice… I expect I shall add more chilli to my plate as I like my food hot, hot, hot, and he is more of a mild person… in character, beer and curry!

There is no precise recipe but it usually starts with grinding the spices (probably cardamom, coriander, cumin and maybe star anise) making them into a paste with some turmeric and chilli, and adding to fried onions and garlic, and maybe some red pepper for colour. There maybe tomatoes, there will definitely be chicken as it’s a chicken curry, and chicken stock and seasoning… and I hope there will be some coconut milk, and maybe some lime leaves, and I hope there will be fresh coriander… If he’s in the mood to make a Thai-style curry then there will be nam pla (fish sauce) and lemon grass… but whatever goes into it, I know it will be delicious.

Curry has an ancient history but the hotness which is most often thought of as being the main feature must originally come from pepper or mustard as the capsicum didn’t arrive in the old world until the sixteenth century. However, the combination of a variety of spices resulting in a delicious and complex flavour is very old. The word may come from the Tamil word kari, meaning sauce… but it could also come from karahi meaning dish…. but on the other hand it could come from the old English word ‘cury’ meaning  cooking, and one of the first cookery books was made in 1390 and called ‘The Forme of Cury’.

Today we think of curry as that yummy cuisine from the Indian sub-continent and south-east Asia. English traders and merchants would have first come across it as they travelled up and down the coast of India; they would have brought spices back to this country, but recipes and the taste for that sort of food came back with the military. As India was conquered and as it eventually became part of the Empire, soldiers and administrators would bring the recipes and spices back.  Moving forward to the twentieth century when people from the east came to Britain, they brought their skills and expertise with them, and soon cafés, curry houses and restaurants sprang up all over the place. Now we cook at home, using recipes from many different cooks of many different traditions and have learnt to create our own dishes with our own preferred combination of spices and ingredients.

My favourite Indian cookery book, I’ve had it for years