Curry leaves (Murraya koenigii Spreng.)

Curry tree with fruits © Liz Thomas

Curry leaves are extensively used in Southern India and Sri Lanka (and are absolutely necessary for the authentic flavour), but are also of some importance in Northern India. Together with South Indian immigrants, curry leaves reached Malaysia, South Africa and Réunion island. Outside the Indian sphere of influence, they are rarely found.

Curry powder is a British invention to imitate the flavour of Indian cooking with minimal effort. Some curry powders, or so the books tell, indeed contain curry leaves, but probably only for historic or linguistic reasons, since dried curry leaves lose their fragrance within days. A typical curry powder should derive its taste mainly from toasted cumin, toasted coriander, black pepper, chiles and toasted fenugreek. Other typical Indian spices often contained in curry powders are dried ginger, ajwain and celery (as a substitute for Indian radhuni), furthermore salt, flour from lightly toasted lentils and aromatic Moghul spices in variable amounts (cinnamon, cloves, green cardamom, Indian bay-leaves). The yellow colour stems from turmeric. I think it’s pretty unreasonable to put spices with absolutely no tradition in India into a spice blend that claims to have an Indian flavour, but nevertheless galangale, caraway, allspice, and zedoary are occasionally listed as ingredients in curry powders. Remember that since curry powder is not a traditional recipe, there is little consensus about what should go into it, and anyone is free to sell his own creation.

Curry tree in full flower © Liz Thomas

Observant readers will notice that the recipe for curry powder outlined in the previous para­graph appears like a com­promise of the Northern Indian garam masala and the Southern Indian sambar podi (see cumin for both mixtures). Anyway, you cannot represent the large spectrum of Indian cooking styles in one single spice mixture; Indians prepare their mixtures separately for each dish and usually do not store them, thus guaranteeing the unique flavour of each recipe. Curry powder, therefore, belongs more to British or international cuisine than to India; anyone trying to cook authentic Indian recipes should stick to traditional Indian spice mixtures or, even better, single spices. Curry powder has been introduced to some Far Eastern countries in the past, and today plays but a minor rôle as a flavouring in China, Indonesia and, above all, Vietnam.

Unripe curry fruits

In Indian cuisines, curry leaves are used fresh; for some recipes, the leaves should be oven-dried or toasted imme­diately before usage. Another common technique is short frying in butter or oil (see ajwain for this procedure) . Since South Indian cuisine is dominantly vegetarian, curry leaves seldom appear in non-vegetarian food; the main applications are thin lentil or vegetable curries (sambaar [சாம்பார்]) and stuffings for the crispy samosa [समोसा]. Because of their soft texture, they are never removed before serving, but can be eaten without any hazard. See coconut for the Southern Indian recipe bese bele.

In Sri Lanka, the delicious chicken and beef curries are flavoured with curry leaves; the leaves are furthermore used for kottu roti [කෝත්තු රෝටි], vegetables and sliced bread which are quickly fried together. Sri Lankan cooking is very hot and pungent due to almost excessive use of chiles, but also very aromatic. Compared to Indians, Sri Lankans eat more meats and less dairy products; meats and vegetables are often cooked in gravies based on water or thin coconut milk instead of yoghurt.

Curry tree sapling

Fresh fruits of the Curry tree © Liz Thomas

The typical Sri Lankan flavour is due to heavy toasting some spices (cumin, coriander, black mustard, fenu­greek) until they reach a rather dark colour; it is often said that Sri Lankan curries have a darker or browner flavour than Indian curries. Sri Lankan cooks often use aromatic spices native to the island (cinnamon, cardamom) and fresh leaves (curry leaves, Pandanus leaves and lemon grass; the latter two are not in common use in India).

Curry leaves may be kept in the refrigerator for some time, but are better kept frozen; do not remove them from the branches before usage!

The term curry is applied inflationarily to many dishes of Far Eastern origin. As shown above, in its true home South India it means a thin, spicy vegetable stew. In Thailand, though, any food cooked in coconut milk is called a curry (gaeng); the term is similarly used in Vietnam, where curries (ca ri [ca ri], see rice paddy herb) are indeed often flavoured with Anglo-Indian curry powder. Laksa, a soupy noodle dish from Malaysia and Singapore, is often referred to as curried noodles or the like, probably, because it contains coconut and derives the familiar yellow colour from turmeric (see Vietnamese coriander for details about laksa).

In Burma, however, a completely different definition of curry is in use: Burmese curries owe their flavour to a fried paste of ground onions and other spices (see onion for details). Lastly, in Indonesia, any spicy food may be termed a curry (kari in Indonesian). Sometimes, one even hears about Ethiopian (see long pepper) or Caribbean curries, whatever this may mean (except, perhaps, the least common denominator of all those: Spiciness).