David Ross

Does anyone know if saffron is ever used in curries and what region of the globe that would be? Are there Spanish curries for example that use Spanish saffron?

I thought the same thing. I also thought that the ladies in my Great Grandmother's neighborhood in Twin Falls, Idaho, would have been surprised if they knew she had curry powder in the cupboard and put coconut in meat dishes. I think that would have been considered quite exotic for a small Idaho town back in the early 1920's.

That's a good question yet I'm not much of an expert. When I do similar dishes I just add the squid at the very last minute but don't coat it in starch. And we're talking just a few seconds in a very hot pan/wok.

"Curries and Bugles-A memoir and a cookbook of the British Raj" by Jennifer Brennan, 1990, Harper Collins. I've had this on the shelf since buying it when it was first published but never really took time to read it. I think our Cook-Off has inspired me to do just that.

The American Woman's Cookbook by Ruth Berolzheimer, 1945, has just a few curry recipes and most are very basic, but it shows that the idea of making curry at home was gaining ground. Turkey Curry- 1 cup mushrooms 1/3 cup minced onion 1 large apple, peeled and diced 3 cups cooked turkey, cut in pieces 6 tbsp. fat 1/2 tsp. salt 3 tbsp. flour 1 1/2 tsp. curry powder 1 1/2 cups turkey stock and top milk or cream Serve with hot boiled rice cooked with little or no salt.

The Curry Chicken Salad got me to thinking about American home cooks making curries decades ago, specifically if one of my Grandmothers or Great-Grandmothers would have made curry dishes. So I turned to my cookbook library and some of my oldest cookbooks to see. I'll start with this very interesting cookbook, "A General's Diary of Treasured Recipes," by Brigadier General Frank Dorn, US Army. The book is filled with memories from his travels and the foods he ate throughout his military service from 1926-1953. He served in the Phillipines, Beijing, Burma and the Chinese-Burma-India theater in WWII. These are some of the curry dishes- Curried Eggs in Shrimp Sauce Curry: East India-Javanese, Pineapple Chicken and Shrimps with Rice "To conjure up the life and contrasts of that subcontinent, (India), on a cold rainy night in your city apartment may seems beyond the powers of the genie who rubs your private Aladdin's lamp for you. But you have all the means to do so when you put together a good spice curry" Sauce- 1/4 cup butter 1/4 cup flour 1 tbsp. curry powder 1 tsp. salt pepper to taste saffron to taste 1 cup milk 1 cup cream 3 cups cooked shrimps 1 cup sliced mushrooms sautéed in butter. Serve with the following, chutney sauce, bacon, nuts, hard-boiled eggs, grated coconut, raisins, seedless grapes, grated orange rind.

I wouldn't call your dish inauthentic at all. I see curry as a dish that is adapted to different tastes the world over. I remember a similar chicken curry salad we had at lunch at thle Georgian Tea Room restaurant inside the downtown Portland department store Meir & Frank, (later to become a Macy's) way back in the 1960's. I can see the dining room in my memory and I imagine that plenty of ladies shopping and lunching would order an exotic chicken curry salad. Of course, the regional ethnic curries we've been discussing that employ spices might not be used by some restaurants or home cooks, but that is why I think this is such a great topic.

This is a special cookbook of mine, "Ooh Lala, Delicious Punjabi Food, Simplified." It's by my friend Lala Rukh. We met back in 2001 on the set of MasterChef USA on PBS. (No, not that dreadful Gordon Ramsay shill "MasterChef."). The program was the American version of MasterChef on the BBC which still runs today with MasterChef (Amateurs), MasterChef The Professionals and MasterChef UK Celebrity. Lala and I competed with another gentleman as the top 3 home cooks in America. She and her husband are from Pakistan so it's interesting to see her versions of curry. Her Cauliflower and Potato Curry calls for onions, garlic, ground coriander, ground red pepper, cumin seeds, turmeric, red potatoes, cauliflower cilantro and ginger. She's got another 20 curries and turmeric is used in most of the recipes. She suggests serving the Cauliflower and Potato Curry with flatbread as traditionally in her region of Pakistan rice is not eaten with cauliflower.

What a beautiful photo. The perfect image of the Fall Hunting Season.

I remembered a little more about the green curry I used for the prawn dish. I also made the green curry as a dipping sauce for fried prawn balls when we did our Meatball Cook-Off. Does anyone know if meatballs are used in curries in some cultures? I have a recipe for lamb meatballs with North African spices, but I know lamb or beef would not be used in some cultures.

Thanks for posting your step-by-step. Since you mentioned the dish earlier I've been intrigued by it and I can't wait to see how it looks when finished. And then of course I'll take a try at it.

Not modest at all I think it looks delicious and definitely something I'd make.

Japan Airlines serves "Tokyo Curry Lab" as a dish on their business and first class menus. Apparently it's a partnership with the Tokyo Curry Lab restaurants. This photo is taken by a passenger in first class so it's not a great depiction, but every other image I've seen of it looks the same, sort of a reddish-brown gravy. I follow a lot of frequent flyer comments on airline food and this dish gets good reviews.

I remembered this Thai Green Curry with Prawns that I had posted over in the Dinner thread back in 2015. I was working on it for a class I taught at a local kitchenware store. It's a good recipe for those of us who are entering into the world of curry cookery. In this photo I grilled large prawns in the shell. I actually prefer head-on prawns. Sometimes I stir shelled prawns into the sauce. Lots of ingredients but a tasty green Thai-style curry. Pickled Vegetable Salad- ½ cup julienned carrot ½ cup julienned daikon radish 1/3 cup julienned green onion 2 tsp. sliced Thai pickled bird chilies ¼ cup rice vinegar 3/4 cup water 2 tsp. sugar 1 tsp. salt Place the carrot, daikon, green onion and Thai bird chilies in a bowl. Add the rice vinegar, water, sugar and salt and stir to combine the ingredients. Cover and chill the salad until ready to serve. Thai Green Curry- 1 tbsp. canola oil 1 tbsp. toasted sesame oil 1 tbsp. minced garlic 1 tbsp. minced ginger 1 can coconut milk 1/2 cup sliced mushrooms 3 tbsp. Thai green curry paste 3 tbsp. Thai yellow curry paste 2 tbsp. brown sugar 1 tbsp. fish sauce 1 tsp. dried red pepper flakes 2 tbsp. fresh lime juice 1 tbsp. lime zest 1/3 cup chopped cilantro 1/3 cup chopped basil 1/3 cup chopped mint Salt and fresh ground black pepper Heat the canola and sesame oils in a wok or saute pan over medium-high heat. Add the garlic and ginger and stir fry briefly to release the flavors but not letting the garlic brown. Add the coconut milk, mushrooms, green and yellow curry pastes, brown sugar, fish sauce and red pepper flakes. Reduce the heat to medium-low and stir the curry to combine the ingredients. Let the curry cook for about 30 minutes for the flavors to come together. If the curry is too thick add some water. If you want to thicken the curry, add a slurry of 1 tbsp. cornstarch stirred into 1/3 cup water. Once the rice is steamed, the prawns grilled and the naan bread ready, finish the curry sauce. Add the lime juice, lime zest and cilantro, basil and mint. Add more lime juice as needed and season with salt and pepper. Steamed Rice- Basmati Rice Black and white toasted sesame seeds I prefer long-grain Basmati rice for it’s earthy flavor. The grains cook really well and don’t stick together. The key to perfect steamed rice is to rinse it before steaming. Place the rice in a colander and immerse it in a bowl of cold water. Swirl the rice around with your hand. You’ll notice the water turns cloudy as the starch is washed off the rice. Drain the water and add fresh water, stirring and draining until the water is clear. It will take about 3-4 washes to drain off most of the starch. The general rule of thumb for steamed rice is a ratio of 1 cup rice to 1 ½ cups water. I use the “knuckle” technique. Put the washed and drained rice in a rice cooker. Fill water up to your next knuckle. In other words, if the rice reaches halfway to your first knuckle, add water to bring the line up to the knuckle. It works out to be about the 1 cup rice to 1 ½ cups water ratio. Add salt or other flavoring after the rice has finished cooking. The rice will keep warm In the steamer while you finish the Thai green curry sauce. Garnish the rice with black and white sesame seeds. Grilled Naan Bread- Frozen naan bread, thawed Olive oil Buy prepackaged Naan bread in the frozen section of Asian markets. It’s also available at some local grocery stores. Thaw the Naan bread. Prepare a grill pan over medium-high to high heat. Brush both sides of the Naan lightly with olive oil then place in the hot pan. Grill the Naan until it’s slightly charred and heated through. Cut in wedges and serve with the Thai Green Curry and Grilled Prawns. Grilled Prawns- 16 large tiger prawns, shell and tail on, deveined Toasted sesame oil Chopped fresh mint Chopped fresh Thai basil Chopped fresh cilantro Chopped dry-roasted cashews Fried Garlic As the green curry sauce simmers and the rice finishes steaming, grill the prawns. Toss prawns in sesame oil. Heat a grill pan over medium-high heat. When the pan is hot, add the prawns and grill until pink and grill marks appear, about 2-3 minutes. Turn the prawns and grill the other side about 2-3 minutes. To Serve- For individual servings, place some rice in a small glass dish and lightly pack the rice down. Flip the dish over into the center of a serving plate. Place 4 of the grilled prawns around the rice. Spoon the green curry sauce around the prawns. Garnish the top of the rice with black and white sesame seeds. Place some of the pickled vegetable salad on top of the rice. Garnish the dish with chopped mint, basil, cilantro, cashers and fried garlic.

The return of my annual Fall/Holiday salad. I could, and should, make this salad year-round, but I wait until the peak of our apple season in Eastern WA and make it through the Holidays. I guess the "Holiday" term comes into play by using dried cranberries. It's also very good with a duck confit hindquarter rested on the salad. Sometimes I'll just pull off some duck confit meat and add that to the salad then garnish it with a nice piece of the duck skin that I crisp under the broiler. Heck now I need to make some duck confit.

This is funny...and shows my naivete when it comes to curry. You might be like me, someone who buys all sorts of products at the local Asian market, then stashes it away in the pantry. I've been holding on to these little cans of curry paste far too long, they both expired in 2016! But I remember at the time I was just starting to get into Thai curries and I had a recipe for "Southern Curry with Koon." As best I remember, koon was like a Japanese eggplant? (Someone here will know I am sure). But I used another type of curry paste in a bigger container so never opened these up. I discovered them yesterday when I was searching the cupboards to see what things I already have to start on a curry dish. Anyone have some ideas for using yellow curry paste or sour yellow curry paste?

Not only delicious but very informative. As we go along, I'd be interested in also hearing a little more about all the accompaniments to your curry.

That is an impressive spice collection

I found a great piece of my cooking history-a recipe I entered into a slow-cooker contest way back in the early 1980's! Now that was a time when we were still using the old "crockpots". Fast forward to today where slow-cookers and insta-pot multi cookers are all the rage. I entered a "Curry-Spice Indian Lamb" recipe, probably the first recipe I ever created from scratch. In the opener I wrote, "Serve this zesty stew with steamed rice with toasted almonds and yogurt-mint dressed cucumber slices." The list of ingredients is extensive: smoked bacon garlic lamb onions apples white beans dried apricots raisins flour curry powder, salt, ground ginger, dried mustard, allspice, turmeric, ground cinnamon black pepper and red pepper flakes red wine beef broth lemon juice Now that I've discovered this recipe again, I think I could modify it to today's tastes and come up with something pretty good.

The October issue of Bon Apetit has a piece on Chef Sirichai Sreparplarn's restaurant Ugly Baby in New York and is red curry paste recipe. The ingredients include lemongrass, galangal, Thai chiles, Asian shallots, garlic, cilantro root, dried Kaffir lime leaves and shrimp paste. He does offer some substitute ingredient suggestions. There are a lot of stpes involved, but it looks it makes a delicious curry paste.

Yes, we hope that a topic like Curry will live on for many years. I hope to learn a lot on this one as I've never really prepared much curry. I have dabbled a bit with Thai sour curry stews and I make a decent Thai green curry with prawns, but I hope to learn about spices. I'm really interested about learning how the spices are blended together, whether they have to be toasted or not, all of those different parts of this global topic.

Curry. Throughout India, from Goa, to Kerala and Gujarat, into Burma, Thailand, Japan, Europe, North America and across the world, curry transcends boundaries and cultures, weaving a mosaic of flavors and textures along the way. And while the reach of curry spans the world, at its core it is a regional, personal dish that isn’t defined by one recipe or one ingredient. The genesis of curry points to archaeological evidence dating to 2600 BC, showing the use of a mortar and pestle to grind spices including mustard seed, fennel, cumin and tamarind to flavor foods. The earliest Roman cookbooks detail recipes of meats seasoned with black pepper, cumin, lovage, mint, marjoram, cloves and coriander. The Mughal Empire in the 15th century influenced curry in Northern India and it spread throughout the continent. The establishment and growth of the spice trade further spread the popularity of curry across the oceans. The British developed a taste for curry early on, highlighted by the Art of Cookery published in 1758 by Mrs. Hannah Glasse. “To make a Currey the Indian Way”-take two small chickens, skin them and cut them as for a fricafey…..take three large onions, chop them small and fry them in about two ounces of butter, then put in the chickens and fry them together until they are brown, take a quarter of an ounce of turmerick, a large spoonful of ginger and beaten pepper together and a little salt to your palate, put in a quarter pint of cream and the juice of two lemons and serve it up.” So what makes a curry a curry? Is it the seasoning? The spices? Do the spices have to be toasted and then pounded in a mortar and pestle? Does curry mean there is a sauce, or does meat rubbed with curry fit the bill? And is curry always made into a sauce, and is the sauce always red, green or yellow? Soup or stew? Served with rice or a certain type of bread? Of course the possibilities are endless and these are some of the questions we’ll be discussing. What about meat? Many curries follow strict religious practices and so meat isn’t used, but do any vegetables work in a curry? Do you serve your curry with rice, bread and other condiments? As food fads fade as fast as they appear on the scene, we turn to dishes like curry that have survived and thrived for millennia. Today we introduce the 80th entry into the eG Cook-Off Series, eG Cook-Off #80: The aromatic, exotic flavors of Curry. (see the complete eG Cook-Off Index here https://forums.egullet.org/topic/143994-egullet-recipe-cook-off-index/ )

Made a version of "Fish Pie" from Tom Kerridge's Proper Pub Food cookbook. I've been a big fan on Tom's cooking for years and love streaming it on my TV. But my version needs some work. Mainly, I can't get smoked haddock locally, and I could find any smoked whitefish that might be a decent substitute. I could have used smoked salmon, but still not the same so next time I'll break the budget and order some Scottish smoked haddock online. I'd also change the sauce base a little. Tom calls for his version of a white sauce, but I'd use my version which is basically the same, but add more lemon juice and butter, and add some dried red pepper flakes. I used prawns, salmon and cod, but any seafood would probably work. But I'm being overly critical as it was delicious and I should make a fish pie more often.

I think most of those look pretty good.

And Roku Sweets is also amazing. The Japanese pastry chefs rival the best of the French pastry chefs in Las Vegas.