The Guide

The British merchants who traveled to India in the 1600s and established a lucrative spice trade quickly developed a taste for the new world of food they discovered, especially the native staple, meat and fish doused in an endless variety of complex and spicy gravies. They embraced the dish, simplified it to suit their tastes, and christened it with a new name: curry — an English adaptation of the Indian word kari (or karil), which refers to spices.

Back home, the British embraced curry like no other ethnic food, encouraged by early marketing campaigns that sold it as a digestive aid, and by its thrifty appeal of livening up leftover meat. Today, curry is as central to the British diet as fish and chips and shepherd’s pie.

―Mitch Kaplan

» 1747
Date of the first known curry recipe in an English cookbook (Hannah Glasse’s Art of Cookery)

» 1598
Date of the first reference to curry in English print (in a translation of a Dutchman’s account of his travels in the Indies)

» 8,116
Number of Indian restaurants operating in the United Kingdom in 2000, according to British curry expert Pat Chapman

» 4
Number of Michelin-starred Indian restaurants in London (Tamarind, Amaya, Benares, and Rasoi Vineet Bhatia)

» 80,000
Annual production, in tons, of chilies in India, the world’s largest producer

A key development in Britain’s love affair with curry was the 19th-century English invention of premixed curry powder, a convenience spurned by traditional Indian cooks, who prefer to grind fresh spices. Indian sauces vary widely, with no set roster of spices, but a typical curry often includes curry leaf, coriander, cumin, mustard seeds, pepper, fenugreek, red and black pepper, turmeric, and possibly cloves, cinnamon, and cardamom — all roasted and ground to a powder.

William Makepeace Thackeray, author of Vanity Fair, was born in India and penned a tribute to his beloved curry that concludes:

“PS — Beef, mutton, rabbit, if you wish,
Lobsters, or prawns, or any kind fish,
Are fit to make a curry. ’Tis, when done,
A dish for Emperors to feed upon.”

» Montego Bay
Curry is also on the menu in Jamaica, where European colonists brought Indian servants in the 1800s. To sample curried goat, a favorite dish for special occasions, head to the Hot Pot in Kingston, where a few dollars buys a filling meal in an informal setting.

» Mumbai
Mumbai boasts authentic cuisine from all over India, from fried flatbreads stuffed with chicken curry sold by sidewalk vendors on the Colaba Causeway, to the chicken in almond sauce at Khyber, considered one of the city’s best restaurants.

Doi maach, a specialty of Bengal, is fish (usually carp) cooked in yogurt with lemon, mustard, turmeric, coriander, cumin, cayenne powder, ginger, garlic, fenugreek seeds, green chili, cardamom, clove, cinnamon, sultanas, tomato, and onion.

One of the simplest recipes in 50 Great Curries of India, the acclaimed cookbook by Camellia Panjabi, is meat cooked with cardamom:

1.Grind 35 whole green cardamoms in a blender with a little water.

2. Heat 1⁄2 cup oil in a cooking pot; add cardamom paste and 2 teaspoons ground black pepper. Fry on low heat 2–3 minutes.

3. Add 21⁄4 pounds lamb, on or off the bone, 1 teaspoon tumeric, 1 teaspoon chili powder, 2 teaspoons coriander. Sauté 10 minutes, stirring constantly.

4. Lower heat and add 3 chopped tomatoes, 1⁄2 cup plain yogurt, whisked, and salt to taste. Sauté 5 more minutes.

5. Add 4 cups of water, cover pot, and simmer until meat is tender. Serve with rice.