Quote:
Originally Posted by Kiyuge
What is Curry?
|
I'm Indian so I can explain
Curry is the name given to meals containing Indian spices. These spices are a mixture of, generally, chili pepper powder, coriander powder, turmeric powder to a
masala mixture for meats made from cinnamon sticks, cumin seeds (great when roasted and added to boiling water for tea), caraway seeds (we call them "jeera"), cloves, and green or black cardamom seed pods.
You put them into meats, you stir them into sauteed onions and garlic before you add in vegetables or sauces (like squash and tomato). Their additions make the meal spicier and tastier.
For example, I can give you a recipe for chicken curry right here:
1) slice up skinless, boneless chicken, into small pieces, and wash clean in a pot of 3/4 water and 1/4 vinegar. Once washed, set aside
2) in a large pot, based on the size of your chicken, sautee onions and garlic cloves over medium-high until yellow, add in 1/2 tsp. of chili pepper powder, coriander powder and turmeric powder (make it a full tsp if you have a lot of chicken)
3) sautee all together until well combined
4) add in your chicken mixture and stir thoroughly until all chicken pieces are covered in the onions/garlic/spice mixture
5) Using a spice grinder, put in 1-2 small shaved cinnamon branches (should be no more than 1" inch in length), 2 tsps of cardamom and cloves, 1 tsp of caraway seeds. Once grinded, add on top of the chicken mixture and stir well until thoroughly combined
6) cover the pot and let cook for 20 minutes on medium-high heat; the pot will fill with the juice from the chicken. Stir every 5 minutes and check at the 15-20 minute point to see if it's cooked. Simply take one of the pieces of chicken and cut it open - if it's white all the way through, then the meat has been cooked!
7) Taste the chicken then and add salt to the pot as you wish (I find 1 tsp is enough for a small amount of chicken); stir thoroughly.
8) Lastly, if you notice that the juice from the chicken mixture in the pot has dwindled, my mom adds milk (1% or 2% - I add skim) to the chicken when done and mixes it good (just enough to create some sauce) - this creates a good chicken curry sauce (which we actually call curry as well) and when you serve the chicken curry over rice, you pour the sauce over the rice as well.
I love dunking bread into the sauce and eating my chicken curry like that
And there you have it, chicken curry.
- Nishi