Chicken Curry and Beyond - The CurryFocus Blog

Coriander is now the top selling herb in Britain.

25 percent (a quarter) of all fresh herb sales are now for coriander, a remarkable achievement seeing that the herb has only been on sale in supermarkets for 20 years. The second placed herb is basil, with 19 percent of sales.

The reason for this boom in coriander sales is the seemingly insatiable appetite for curries in the UK.

Coriander is used in lots of Indian curry dishes including curries, soups and breads with fresh coriander being chopped up and either put into the food whilst it is cooking or sprinkled over the food as a tasty garnish when it is served.

The herb has been grown commercially all over Britain for more than 30 years and packets of seeds started to appear in supermarkets about 10 years ago. It isn’t hard to grow coriander but it needs a bit more attention than just throwing a few seeds into a pot and watering it.

But you don’t need to grow your own coriander – you can just buy it from your supermarket or local Indian supply shop. All you need to do is wash the coriander, finely chop it up and then sprinkle it on your favourite curry just before you eat it. Most people only use the leaf part of the plant but some use the whole plant. Why not give it a try and see what you think?

Hi, Ray here again.

It’s time to try out another curry recipe from the Curry Focus website. I was given a couple of large aubergines so it was an easy choice to cook an aubergine dish. There is a recipe for an Aubergine Curry that is really easy to follow.

I already had everything in the kitchen for the curry.

It was such an easy curry to make.

I cut up and soaked the aubergines.

I got everything else ready whilst the aubergine was soaking and there was plenty of time to sit down and enjoy a relaxing cup of coffee and a read of the paper (cooking does not have to be hard work).

Then the actual cooking started.

I heated up the oil and fried all of the spices before adding the aubergine and tomatoes.

After 5 minutes, I added the lemon juice and then reduced the heat and simmered the curry for 10 minutes.

I was also making some naan bread to go with the curry.

Earlier in the afternoon I prepared the dough and experimented with cooking the naan. So I had already preheated the oven for when the simmering of the aubergine started.

I cooked the naan bread whilst the aubergine was simmering.

It all came ready at the same time and I served up the aubergine with a side of the naan bread.

The aubergine curry was a hit. It was a spicy medium to hot and scored a rating of 7.5 out of 10 from the dinner tasters.

As well as being easy to cook, it’s a healthy curry that I shall definitely be making again.

The Mughal emperor, Babur, invaded Hindustan in 1526. Babur was from Uzbekistan and he moved through Afghanistan to reach Hindustan, which is the former name of northern India.

The cuisine from Babur’s homeland was deeply influenced by the culinary styles of Persia and, to some extent, Turkey.

The pulao (or pilau) dish was introduced in the time of Babur and was basically meat fried in fat with water, rice and vegetables added. The Mughals ate meat, such as beef and mutton, whereas a lot of the population of Hindustan were vegetarians. There are lots of versions of vegetarian pulao/pilau recipes that you can try. There’s a very simple Curry Focus recipe for Pulao Rice here and there’s a Vegetable Pulao recipe here.

During the reign of Babur’s son, Humuyan, the pulao/pilau dish became even more popular and evolved into containing not just spices, but also fruit and chicken.

The next emperor was Akbar and the pulao/pilau dish evolved even further into an entirely new dish, biryani. Biryani is similar to pulao/pilau but usually contains meat that has been marinated in yogurt and is more than likely to contain onions, garlic, almonds, saffron and rice as well as a wide variety of spices. You can see a recipe for Chicken Biryani here and for a Lamb Biryani here.

The Mughals built the most well known building in the world. Akbar’s grandson, Shahjahan, was responsible for creating the Taj Mahal, in Agra.

There’s no denying that the Taj Mahal is a magnificent gift to the world

And nobody can argue the pulao/plau and biryani dishes are also great gifts to the world from the Mughals.

March has been a great month for the CurryFocus.co.uk website with our traffic increasing to another all time high.

We have added more great articles and below are the latest.

World Rice Shortage Worsens
Following on from our recent blog on the world rice shortage, this weekend’s news from Vietnam confirms that the problem has got worse.

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

Garlic. A Curry Favourite

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

Garlic has a pungent spicy flavor that mellows in cooking.

The main part of the garlic plant is the bulb that has lots of small segments that are called cloves. Curry recipes that use garlic …. Read More

Sambal. What Is It?

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

Sambal features a lot in Indonesian and Malaysian cuisine.

One of the simplest sambals is made from chillies and salt but more elaborate sambals can contain onion, garlic, lemongrass, vinegar, lime juice, sugar, fruit and nuts….. Read More

Once again, chicken curry recipes are the favourites.

Top 5 Recipes for March

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

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