Just think, if you used brown rice you wouldn't need meat to provide the protein for the curry dishes.
I will be trying the curries without meat, thank you.
4
No self respecting Indian uses curry powder. Not unless s/he is trying to cook British "food."
13
@whaddoino This isn't an Indian recipe, but a Caribbean one, and Caribbeans use a distinctive curry blend. It's noted for its use of fenugreek.
16
@Alexis
The Carribbean cooking of which you speak is evolved from Indians who settled in the Carib as indentured laborers 100+ years ago. Read V. S. Naipaul's Suffrage of Elvira/ Mystic Masseur/ House for Mr. Biswas to get a flavor of this culture. Fenugreek has always been used in Indian cooking, so its appearance in the Caribbean is not surprising. Of course, the Caribbeans have now created their own distinctive style, neither inferior nor superior to the Indian ones from which they originated.
However, the whole notion of a "curry blend" is totally unappetizing to Indian, and I suspect, to serious Caribbean cooks too. That is the lazy person's way. It would mean that all your dishes would have that same indiscriminate combination of flavors. The better approach is add spices and herbs separately, and vary the precise types and their quantities between dishes, especially dependent on what it is one is cooking.
9
@Alexis
And allspice also, known as 'pimento' in much of the Caribbean. For a curry goat recipe I sometimes make, madras curry powder with a good dollop of allspice does the trick. This curry rice is something I want to make really soon!
3
It should be noted that there is no “ curry” in Indian, rather South Asian (Indian, Pakistani, Srilankan, Nepali, etc.) cooking. What the English speaking world calls “curry” is actually any sauce in South Asian cooking. The Britishers picked up the word “Kadhi”, which is a yogurt and gram flour soup/stew, and called it “Curry”. Probably because they could not creat the sound of “dhi”. Also please note that there is NO CURRY POWDER in South Asian cooking. The yellow color is from the use of Turmeric (please pronounce it with the “r”.). The sauces (curries) you see/taste in most South Asian restaurants are from North India/Punjab ( don’t call it Poonjab, it is Punjaab). But there hundreds of other sauces with their own flavors. Like there is not one recipe for Barbecue sauce, similarly there is not one recipe or curry powder for South Asian sauces.
19
@KB
What you say about "Kadhi" in North Indian cuisine and the inability of the European tongue to articulate the sound is quite correct. But to add to the confusion, there is a common ingredient in South Indian cuisine, with the homophonic name "kadi patta," or "kari patta". Patta means leaf, so you will sometimes see this described as "curry leaf" in English. Kadi patta is used to season many dishes, including what the nondiscriminating refer to as "curries."
7
The foods of the diaspora: I had several moments of heaven recently when I experienced a spicy but absolutely sublime Jamaican jerk sauce.
I promptly began smearing the sauce on different types of protein and starches, and it was excellent!!
1
Curry powder is not "as British as it is Indian", it's British imitation of an Indian spice mix called garam (hot) masala -- only much hotter. Go figure the irony.
5
Curry rice cooked in Coconut milk with callaloo, yum, yum! My mouth is watering with just the thought.
4
I'm an Indian American home cook. The word "curry" is misunderstood and misused in the West. That's OK :)
To you guys, Curry means one generic powder that you use for any stew, marinade etc.
For South Asians, West Indians etc. curry is a versatile thing with vast regional differences – you saute onions, garlic etc, pound different spices, put it in, and cook it in different ways.
In some ways, it is like snow. To us, it is snow; but to Eskimos, they have reportedly 64 ways to differentiate and describe it.
36
I remember my first experience with curried rice when I was a student in third grade (our class had a bring a dish from home day) it was nothing that I have ever eaten before and I could not stop eating it.
19