Chicken Curry and Beyond - The CurryFocus Blog

Following on from our recent blog on the world rice shortage, the latest news from Vietnam confirms that the problem is getting worse.

Vietnam is the usually 5th largest producer of rice, and the 3rd largest exporter, of rice in the world.

But all this has changed with disease and pests attacking the rice crops both last year and this.

And there doesn’t seem to be an answer to the problem at present.

The rice-dependent part of the world is reeling from crop failures, and shortages, and is nervously waiting to see if the rice diseases and pests spread from Vietnam into neighbouring major rice producing countries (such China, Thailand and Cambodia).

You can read an article on Vietnam’s current problems on Yahoo.

As a result of their problems, Vietnam has placed heavy restrictions on rice exports to try and ensure that the local population has access to the most important of their staple foods.

So Vietnam joins a list of countries (India, China and Egypt) that has banned, or restricted, rice exports so that their own people can eat. But the price of rice is rising in those countries despite these actions.

So what this mean for you and me? Higher prices for rice are inevitable as countries that buy rice compete against each other for a diminishing supply. And there may be shortages in your local supermarket as well, although it is too early to see if this actually happens.

My local supermarket does not seem to have noticed any problems in the rice market because my favourite basmati rice was on sale this weekend with 30% off the regular price. But, as the world’s rice supplies do dry up, the prices WILL rise.

At the end of the day, I can afford to pay more for my rice. It’s the masses in South East Asia who have a far bigger problem in finding affordable food.

Garlic is part of the onion family of plants and, like onions, is an ingredient in many curry recipes.

Garlic has a pungent spicy flavour that mellows in cooking.

The main part of the garlic plant is the bulb and there are lots of small segments in the bulb. These segments are called cloves. Curry recipes that use garlic usually tell you how many cloves of garlic to use. You take this number of cloves off the main bulb, peel away the thin tissue-like covering and you are left with the raw garlic. You either finely chop or crush the garlic to use in the recipe (there’s a special kitchen utensil, called a garlic crusher, that you use to crush garlic – the utensil looks a bit like a nut crusher). Most times you can chop up the garlic really finely if you don’t have a garlic crusher.

Often you will be putting garlic into a curry at the same time as you are cooking the onions or ginger. The three ingredients go together well.

As well as being great in cooking, garlic also has a lot of medicinal applications.

Garlic has been used to treat a wide variety of ailments such as high cholesterol, hypertension, cancer, blood sugar problems, the common cold and AIDS. You can search the internet if you want to find out more details.

Garlic is reasonably easy to grow and is readily available all around the world with China and India being the main producers.

No kitchen should be without a bulb of garlic.

Hi, Ray here again.

Curry time again. A quick check on the Curry Focus website for another delicious curry. And this time it’s going to be Lamb with Spinach (Saag Gosht).

Once again, this is a really simple recipe to follow and more time was spent on preparing the ingredients than in standing and cooking the curry.

I got some pretty lean lamb and just had to trim off a few pieces.

A big bag of spinach boiled down to just a small pile of spinach – I’m always amazed at how much spinach shrinks when it is cooked.

The food processor made a good job of making a puree of the main ingredients.

The lamb was quickly browned and then a stir-fry of the bay leaves, cardamoms, cloves and cinnamon.

Then the onion puree entered the frying pan to be followed, 5 minutes later, by the main ingredients of the lamb and spinach, and some water.

Then it was pretty easy simmering the curry for 90 minutes.

The rice went into the microwave 15 minutes before the curry would be ready and a couple of stuffed paratha (bought from my local Indian store) were microwaved after the rice was ready.

The yogurt was added at the end and the meal was served up to the dinner guests.

This is really a stupendous dish. The spices are mild and add a delicate flavour to the curry. So the curry is tasty but mild. It is very tasty and was quickly eaten.

Very favourable comments were made about the curry and it rated an excellent 7.5 out of 10, with a mild spicy heat rating.

Now it’s confession time. I made the exact same meal last week and forgot to put in the yogurt. This was a big mistake. The curry was barely OK and everyone knew that there was something missing. It wasn’t until I was loading up the dishwasher that I realised what I had done. Last week was a runny, slightly spicy stew and this week was beautiful – better than I’ve eaten in lots of curry houses.

Why not try out this delicious recipe for yourself? You won’t regret it, as long as you put in all of the key ingredients.

Sambal is a spicy relish that is usually served as a side dish to a meal.

Sambal features a lot in Indonesian and Malaysian cuisine.

The simplest sambal is made from chillies and salt but the more elaborate sambals can contain onion, garlic, lemongrass, vinegar, lime juice, sugar, fruit and nuts.

You use the sambal as a relish and usually you spread the sambal on meat that you want livened up with a bit of spicy heat.

There’s a recipe for a delicious Tamarind Sambal on the Curry Focus website that you can try out.

There are lots of different types of sambal that you can buy from your local Asian store, if you don’t want to make one yourself.

But it’s much more fun to make your own sambal. Why not give it a go?

February, although a short month, has been our busiest to date in terms of visitors to our site and we have added more articles and recipes throughout the month.

Onions and Curry. A Culinary Blend

Making a curry without onion is almost unthinkable. Nearly every curry starts with cooking onions. Some curries have a lot of onions and some have only a small amount of onions. But the onions are always there….Read More

Paprika. What Is It?

Traditionally, paprika is made from red bell peppers. The peppers are allowed to dry and then the stalks and the inside veins are discarded. The pepper fruit and seeds are separated from each other and separately ground into powder. This process is done for different types of bell pepper and the resultant powders are blended to produce the required taste…. Read More

Tamarind. What Is It?

The tamarind tree is a tropical tree that originated in east Africa. The main growing place is now India but the tamarind tree is grown in such diverse tropical locations as the Caribbean, Mexico, northern Brasil, Hawaii and Florida…. Read More

Top 5 Recipes for February

It never ceases to amaze us here at Curry Focus how often chicken appears in our top five recipes and this month every one of the top five is a chicken related dish.

1 Chicken Curry
2 Easy Chicken Curry
3 Chicken Jalfrezi
4 Balti Chicken
5 Chicken Curry (Kodi Kura)

Why not tell us the recipes that you like? You can submit a new recipe here and a restaurant here.

You may have noticed the newspaper and TV headlines about the world shortage of rice and the subsequent prices rises.

The Independent Bangladesh has a good article and you can read it here.

A combination of factors is making the shortage worse than it would normally be.

Firstly, Thailand farmers are holding back stocks waiting for the prices to go even higher.

Next, both India and China have banned exports (except to a few specific countries) so that their own population can have the crop.

Prices have recently soared in Pakistan by 60% and in Singapore by between 30% and 40%.

Some of the price rise has been caused by concern over low wheat crops that are expected in India and concerns over the next rice harvest in Vietnam.

Among the factors being blamed for the rice and wheat shortages is that there are less crops because land is being converted to produce biofuel for cars.

The South Wales Echo has picked up on the link between rising rice prices and the cost of a curry down your favourite curry house. Check out the full story here.

The Rice Association has pointed out that the price of basmati rice has recently doubled.

And the rice shortage and rise in curry prices has been picked up by Metro. You can see the full story here.

Will these price increases stop you and me from eating our favourite meals? I doubt it. You’ve got to keep all of this in perspective – you can still buy a 1kg (2.2 lb) bag of basmati rice for about half the cost of a pint of beer. A bargain.