Chicken Curry and Beyond - The CurryFocus Blog

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

Onions have been grown around the world for thousands of years and their taste varies from sweet to very pungent (Indian curries usually use more pungent onions). And their aroma also varies from almost nothing to a pungency that makes your eyes water.

Why do some onions make your eyes water? It’s because they contain enzymes that begin to break down when you cut the onions. The enzymes create mild acids that are unstable and turn into a gas. The gas contains sulphur and moves through the air and reaches your eyes where it reacts with the water in your eyes to form a mild sulphuric acid. Not surprisingly, the acid irritates the nerves in your eye and makes them sting. The eyes react to the stinging by producing tears that dilute the acid and clean out your eye.

Not all onions are this strong. But if they are, or you cry easily when cutting onions, you can take some avoiding actions. Try cutting the onions under a running tap so that the gas reacts with the tap water and not your eyes. Alternatively, you can cut up the onions in a bowl of water to have the same effect. Most of the enzymes are concentrated in the root of the onion so you could cut off the root last (and under running water).

Once the cooking has started, the eye-watering problem is gone.

But you should take care when cutting up onions so as not to rub your eyes with your fingers because that is really going to hurt. If this happens, wash out your eyes with lots of water.

Onions are a key component of curries. Most recipes start with instructions to heat up the oil, over a medium to high heat, and cook the onions until they are soft (onions soften and have a golden colour when they are cooked but some recipes tell you to keep cooking the onions until they are black and crisp). The onions are often cooked with ginger root and garlic.

After being peeled, onions are usually finely chopped, coarsely chopped or sliced. All things being equal, finely chopped onions take less time to cook than coarsely chopped onions. Curries will be browner and darker the longer the onions are cooked – you should only cook the onions until they are soft (around 10 minutes, depending upon the heat of the oil) unless you are told otherwise.

Deep fried, or blackened, onions are sometimes used as a garnish for curries such as on a Do Piaza (or dopiaza).

And onions are good for you. They contain anti-cholesterol, anti-cancer, antioxidant and anti-inflammatory components that are effective in treating a wide range of diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and even the common cold.

Next time you make a curry, make sure that you have a couple of good onions nearby.

There is no simple answer to this question.

There are lots of types of paprika.

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.

Some peppers are dried over fires to give them a woody flavour.

And some pepper powders are mixed with powders from the fruits of other members of the capsicum family to give a paprika with heat (bell peppers, by themselves, have no heat as recorded on the Scoville heat scale).

So you can get hot, sweet or bittersweet flavours of paprika depending on the peppers used and even where the peppers were grown – the same plants produce different flavour peppers in different parts of the world.

Indian cuisine uses paprika mainly to add a red colour to a dish while the Hungarian cuisine uses paprika a lot to give their dishes flavour, as well as colour.

Tamarind is extracted from the pods of the evergreen tamarind tree.

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.

The tamarind pods have a brown, sticky pulp that is the extract. Once extracted, the pulp is squeezed into flat blocks. The blocks are processed to produce tamarind paste and concentrate.

Tamarind does not have much of an aroma and has a sour, fruity taste.

Tamarind is added to curries (such as vindaloo) as well as pickles and chutneys to make best use of the sour taste.

Tamarind sauce, served in Indian restaurants to accompany other dishes, is made by mixing tamarind concentrate with water.

The poppy seeds that are used in cooking either come from the Blue Poppy or the White Poppy. Whilst the seeds are very similar, the white poppy seeds are the ones that are used in Indian cuisine.

Poppy seeds have a nutty flavour that is at its best when the seeds are toasted. It only takes a few minutes of toasting to release the full flavour and sweet aroma.

The seeds are usually ground to a powder and used to thicken Indian curry sauces. Otherwise, the seeds can be sprinkled over dry vegetarian or meat dishes.

Poppy seeds are very hard and are tough to grind. You can even buy a special poppy seed grinder. If you are going to grind poppy seeds, don’t forget to toast them first to release the full flavour.

There are medicinal uses for poppy seeds including cough medicines and treating toothache and earache. The seeds themselves are used to stimulate the appetite. The dangerous derivatives such as heroin, morphine and codeine come from poppy pods and stems, not the seeds.

Kaffir, or makrut, lime is a lime that is originally from Southeast Asia and is now grown in such diverse places as Florida and Australia.

The kaffir lime is green in colour and has the shape of a pear.

The rind and leaves are both used in cooking, particularly Thai cuisine.

The leaves give a particularly tangy citrus taste and are used in curries, soups and salads.

The rind has a slightly bitter citrus taste and is grated and used in curry pastes and fish cakes.

The`zest (fruit part of the rind) is used in Creole`cooking to add its distinctive citrus flavour.

It’s best to use fresh kaffir lime leaves and rind wherever possible because the flavour is quickly lost from the fruit once it has been cut open, You can freeze any spare leaves and rind quite easily just by putting them in ordinary freezer bags.

Kaffir lime rind is used medicinally to treat digestive problems and the rind is used in some tonics that are reputedly good for the blood.