Is this a curry?

It's a curry if you call it a curry


Here comes the boring bit:-

Having studied the history of spice cooking and taught Indian cookery at evening classes (over 30 years ago) I can quite categorically state that the origin and meaning is shrouded in mystery and lost in time.

There's proof that spices were used in cooking nearly 5,000 years ago (no name given to it). There are plenty of claims to have invented the word 'curry' but it's difficult to prove anything.

Some say it comes from the Tamil word Kari which is, variously, explained as a dish with spices - but some say it means with a soup like consistency and others say it's a thicker sauce.

In an English cook book produced in the late 14th Century it mentions Cury (originating from French) and thought to just relate to a stew type meal, with or without spices. Spices were already being used quite widely in English cooking by then.

There's little doubt that the popular modern meaning of the word was brought back from the time of The Raj. In India they didn't use the word 'curry' at all for their dishes and, generally, don't do it now.

All the regions of India have their own particular specialities and names for the different styles of spicy cooking. Which is not surprising as there are 22 official languages and about 1,500 other languages spoken there.

Going back to your recipe, you mentioned using a leek and I presume you use that instead of an onion. Onion is almost universally used in curries, but not in all of them, and frying the onion adds a completely different flavour to just cooking leeks into the curry.

Do you use fresh ginger? If not, then I would recommend using it instead of powdered ginger.

With regard to coriander seed, and a lot of other seeds such as cumin and fenugreek, it's better to dry roast them and then grind them before adding to the cooking. Just heat a heavy bottomed pan before putting the seeds in and shaking them around. This helps to release the aromatic oils locked in the seeds. Cumin only takes about 20 seconds in a hot pan, coriander takes about a minute and fenugreek (Methi) takes a bit longer. Then grind them in a mortar or, as I do, grind them in a coffee grinder (which I keep just for spices).

If you don't know about fenugreek then it's worth Googling it. Although it can have an unpleasant smell (I don't think so) and a bitter taste it makes a fantastic difference to a curry dish. It's also said to help type 2 diabetes and problems with catarrh.

 

There's no real evidence either way, as the records go so far back in time, but it's thought that spices may both have been used to preserve and for other health reasons. Most spices have a record of being of use as a preventative or curative. Turmeric, for example, is recommended for very many conditions especially arthritis.

There is some more recent evidence that the Victorians used spices to help cover the smell of meat that had started to go off as well as for the flavour.

 

What are you doing for protein? Do you eat lentils, chick peas and beans? Or do you make it up with nuts (quite expensive way to do it).

 

Mrs Shiney is, mainly, vegetarian but eats well and gets lots of protein. I don't think she would be too happy with just grazing.