You look out the window at a grey, wet, thoroughly miserable February day. There are
dishes in the sink, laundry strewn around the house and a mess in the back of your
refrigerator that is beginning to evolve into a sentient life-form. Short of indulging in the
sort of indiscretion that could come back in later years to ruin your political ambitions, is
there anyway out of the mid-winter blahs? You might try a curry.
People don't eat curries very often in this country, but more than half the world's
population live on them. It's hard to pin down a definition of "curry", because the dish is
popular in many cultures, with thousands of local variations. "When you talk about 'curry',
it is a particular taste that people associate with, not a particular dish" says Perrin Long, a
chef at The Culinary Institute of New Hampshire College, in Manchester. "Most people
don't even realize that it is a blend of spices. It's hard to come up with any kind of
comprehensive definition, but the most basic description of the dish would probably be 'a
spicy Asian stew with a mixture of spices that include cinnamon, coriander, turmeric,
cumin and chili.'" Though there are literally thousands of types of curries, in the US we
tend to divide them into two types - Indian or Thai.
The secret to a good Indian curry is using fresh spices, says Rajesh Kumer of Keene's
Paradise of India Restaurant. "We always use FRESH masalas [spice mixtures]," he says.
"We use cumin seed, coriander (leaf and seed), cinnamon, cloves, green cardamom, fennel
and saffron. The mixture gives us a good flavor. We usually cook North Indian curries,
which have more beef and lamb." (Curries from the southern India, which is
predominantly Hindu, tend to include fresh seafood and pork, which are not eaten much in
the Muslim north. Vegetarian and Vegan dishes are common throughout the country.)
"People think that all Indian food is very spicy," says Kumer, "but there are many, many
types of curry and it is easy to adjust a recipe to make it mild." He personally only drinks
water with his curry, preferring to focus on the complex flavors in the food, but suggests
that a good accompaniment is Lasi, a traditional Indian drink made from fresh yogurt.
Thai curries are usually characterized by the use of coconut milk and a mixture of sweet
and spicy ingredients. They are generally described by color - "yellow" curries for
instance, come from southern Thailand and contain a lot of turmeric, which gives them a
yellow color. Red or Green curries are more popular in the north of the country. Thai
curries tend to be more elaborate than Indian curries and involve more exotic ingredients,
like lemon grass, galangal (an Asian root, a bit like ginger), shrimp paste and Kaffir Lime
leaves. According to Panom Voravittayathorn, manager of the Thai Garden restaurant in
Keene, Thai curries lend themselves well to a wide variety of tastes. "In Thailand," he
says, "the tradition is to eat as a family group. We serve several dishes; some are hot, some
not so much. We usually serve side dishes of hot sauce for the people who want it, so
everyone at the table is comfortable." He suggests drinking beer with curry. "Most wines
don't stand up to the strong flavors in the food," he says. "If you do drink wine, make sure
that it has a little bit of spiciness of it's own."
Here, in descending order of complexity, are three curry recipes that might zest up a grey
February day:
Gkaeng Kiow Wahn Moo - Easy Green Curry with Pork
This recipe is found on pages 138 to 139 of It Rains Fishes: Legends, Traditions and the
Joys of Thai Cooking, by Kasma Loha-unchit. Published by Pomegranate Artbooks, 1995.
Ingredients:
2 cups or 1 14-oz. can coconut milk
2-3 Tbs. green curry paste
1 lb. pork, cut into bite-size strips about 2 x 1 x 1/4 in.
1/2 lb. small, round Thai eggplants (ma-keua bprawh), cut in
halves or quarters, or substitute with 2 long Asian eggplants, cut in bite-size chunks
1/2 cup small pea eggplants (ma-keua puang), or substitute with shelled fresh peas
2 kaffir lime leaves (bai ma-gkrood)
Fish sauce (nahm bplah) to taste
2 tsp. palm sugar, or to taste
1/2 to 1 cup fresh Thai sweet basil leaves and flowers (bai horapa)
Slivered chillies, to desired hotness
Do not shake the can of coconut milk before opening, so that the cream remains on top.
Spoon about 2/3 cup of this thick cream into a medium-size saucepan and heat over
medium to high heat. Reduce until smooth and bubbly and until oil begins to separate from
the cream. Add the curry paste and fry in the cream for a few minutes to release the
aromas. Then pour in the remaining milk.
Bring to a boil and add the pork. Return to a boil, reduce heat and simmer 5-10 minutes
uncovered before adding the Thai eggplants and pea eggplants. Simmer a few minutes
more, then stir in the peas (if using instead of pea eggplants) and kaffir lime leaves. Season
to taste with fish sauce (may not be needed if the curry paste is already salted). Add palm
sugar to balance and enhance the spice and herb flavors to your liking. Continue to simmer
until eggplants and peas are tender. Stir in the basil and chillies (as desired for added
hotness) and cook another minute. Serve hot over plain steamed rice.
Indian Beef Curry From Madras
This recipe is found on pages 331 to 332 of Cuisines of Asia, by Jennifer Brennan.
Published by St. Martin's Press, 1984.
Ingredients:
2 to 3 tbsp. Indian Curry Spice Mix (see below)
3 tbsp. white vinegar
4 tbsp. ghee (Indian clarified butter) or vegetable oil
2 large onions - peeled and chopped
2 cloves of garlic - peeled and chopped
2 lbs. lean beef - but into 1-inch cubes
1 tsp. salt
3 canned tomatoes - drained and chopped
? cup coconut milk or water
? to ? tsp. garam masala - an aromatic Indian curry powder, available at most natural
food stores
In a small bowl, mix the Curry Spice Mix and the vinegar into a paste. Set aside.
Heat the ghee or oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the onions and garlic and fry
them, stirring, until the onions are a deep gold. Add the curry paste and fry it, stirring
continuously, until the paste changes color and the sharp odors mellow - about 3 minutes.
Increase the heat to high and add the beef cubes. Stir and mix them in the paste and onion
mixture until they are coated and look brown. Scrape the bottom of the pan with a
wooden spoon while you are doing this so that the paste does not stick and burn. Sprinkle
the meat with salt and reduce the heat to low. Cover the pan and simmer, uncovering to
stir occasionally, for up to 30 minutes. During this time, a thick gravy will form.
Add the tomatoes, re-cover and simmer for 5 more minutes. Now uncover and pour in the
Coconut Milk or water. Increase the heat to medium-high and bring the liquid to a boil.
Immediately reduce the heat to low again, add the garam masala and simmer, uncovered,
stirring from time to time for another 10 minutes, or until the beef is tender and the gravy
has thickened again to a consistency of thin custard. Curry is very forgiving, and if you
should cook the dish longer, you will merely have more tender meat and a thicker, more
concentrated gravy.
Pour the curry into a serving bowl and leave in a warm oven until you are ready to serve.
The following is a personal recipe that is neither authentic Indian nor Thai, but is easy to
prepare and uses ingredients that are locally available. It is vegetarian.
Curry au Fladd
Ingredients:
3-4 tbsp. peanut or vegetable oil
1 large onion - chopped
3 cloves of garlic - minced
2 thumb-sized pieces of fresh ginger - peeled and minced or chopped into "matchsticks"
4-5 tbsp garam masala
1 large red bell pepper - chopped
1 carrot - chopped or shredded
1 japapeno pepper - seeded and chopped
1 large potato - diced and boiled
2 eggs - scrambled, cooked hard and diced
1 bottle of beer
1 14 oz. can coconut milk
1 large bunch cilantro - chopped coarsely
5-7 oz. (1/2 - 3/4 can) cashews
? medium cantaloupe - peeled, seeded and cubed
In a large cast-iron pan or wok, cook the onion, garlic and ginger in oil, on medium heat
until the onions are translucent. Add the carrot, bell pepper and garam masala. Cook
another 5 minutes. Add 6 oz (?) of the beer, drinking the remainder. Stir till ingredients
form a gravy. Add potato, egg, jalapeno and coconut milk, and reduce heat. Let it simmer
for several minutes while you explain to your children that: 1) No, this is not "weird hippy
food" and 2) No, they will not die if they eat it. Allow the curry to cook down until slightly
thickened. Add the remainder of the ingredients, cook for another 5 minutes and serve
with very cold beer and plain yogurt.
Real Curry Powder
If an Indian or a Thai caught you cooking with commercial "curry powder" he or she
would certainly sneer at you and might even laugh out loud, pointing and mocking you. It
is generally agreed that most commercial curry powders aren't very good. Use fresh curry
powders that you can buy in bulk at most natural food or health food stores, or better yet,
make your own. Here is the method recommended by Jennifer Brennan in her book,
Cuisines of Asia:
Ingredients:
? cup coriander seeds or ? cup ground coriander
? cup cumin seeds or ? cup ground cumin
6-8 dried, red chili peppers or 1? tbsp. Cayenne
1 tbsp whole black peppercorns or 1 tbsp ground black pepper
1 tbsp mustard seeds (preferably black)
2 tbsp ground turmeric
2 tbsp ground fenugreek (found in better spice ranges)
Set a heavy cast-iron frying pan over low heat and separately dry-roast the whole spices,
stirring them and shaking the pan constantly until the aroma is released and they begin to
brown. Do not let the spices burn. If you are using ground spices, warm them gently on a
baking tray in the oven until they begin to give off an aroma, taking care not to burn them;
this is a quick process.
Feed the roasted whole spices into a spice grinder, blender, food processor or coffee
grinder and grind into a fine powder. (This will have to be done in batches.) Accumulate
the powder in a bowl or pour it into a storage jar. Ad the pre-ground spices and stir or
shake the mixture until all the spices are thoroughly blended. Cover the bowl or cap the
storage jar tightly.
