47 Fun Facts About Curry

The English word 'curry' most likely comes from a word in which language family?

Tamil kari, meaning a sauce or relish, belongs to the Dravidian language family; the word reached English through Portuguese caril in the sixteenth century.

Whose 1747 Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy had the first anglicised 'currey' recipe?

Hannah Glasse's The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy (1747) included 'To make a currey the India way', the first curry recipe printed in an English cookbook.

Which key curry ingredient did NOT exist in India before the Columbian exchange?

Chili peppers are a New World crop; Portuguese traders introduced them to Goa after 1510, and earlier Indian cooking drew its heat mainly from black pepper and long pepper.

Which gum resin from the genus Ferula was a key spice in medieval Indian proto-curries?

Asafoetida, called hing in Hindi, is the dried latex of Ferula roots; its sulphurous smell mellows into a savoury, onion-like flavour when fried in oil.

Dhansak, a stew of meat with lentils and vegetables, comes from which Indian community?

Dhansak is a Parsi dish of mutton or chicken stewed with lentils and vegetables, traditionally eaten on Sundays and at the meal that ends a family's period of mourning.

Where was the first commercially available curry powder advertised in England, in 1784?

Sorlie's Perfumery Warehouse on Piccadilly advertised ready-made curry powder in the Morning Post in 1784, decades before grocery brands made it a pantry staple.

Kerala's mild fish curry moilee is simmered in which liquid?

Meen moilee, a Keralan fish stew, is gently simmered in coconut milk with green chillies and curry leaves, giving a pale, mild curry.

Which spice gives curry powder its deep orange-yellow colour?

Turmeric, the dried and ground rhizome of Curcuma longa, supplies curry powder's orange-yellow colour through the pigment curcumin.

The curry tree, whose leaves flavour many South Indian dishes, belongs to which plant family?

The curry tree, Murraya (Bergera) koenigii, belongs to the citrus family Rutaceae; Linnaeus described it in 1767, and its aromatic leaves are fried in oil to start many southern Indian dishes.

Which Indian dish was reputedly invented in Glasgow, possibly by chef Ali Ahmed Aslam?

Chicken tikka masala is said to have been improvised at Glasgow's Shish Mahal in the 1970s, when Ali Ahmed Aslam stirred a tin of condensed tomato soup and yoghurt into dry chicken tikka.

Which British Foreign Secretary called a Glasgow-born curry 'a true British national dish' in 2001?

Robin Cook, Foreign Secretary from 1997 to 2001, made the remark in an April 2001 speech on British identity, calling the dish 'a perfect illustration of the way Britain absorbs and adapts external influences'.

Which country's curries use a dark roasted curry powder and pandan leaves?

Sri Lankan curries are seasoned with a dark-roasted curry powder and flavoured with pandan (rampe) leaves and curry leaves, usually in a coconut milk base.

Rogan josh, coloured with alkanet and Kashmiri chillies, is a centrepiece of which multi-course feast?

The wazwan is the Kashmiri Muslim banquet of dozens of mostly meat courses cooked by waza chefs; rogan josh, along with dishes such as rista and gushtaba, is one of its staples.

The word korma comes from a Hindi-Urdu term meaning what?

Korma comes from Hindi-Urdu qorma, meaning braising: meat cooked slowly in a sealed pot with yoghurt or cream; the word ultimately traces to Turkic qavurma, 'fried meat'.

Which Cambodian curry is traditionally steamed in a banana-leaf cup?

Amok is Cambodia's signature dish: fish in a kroeung curry paste and coconut cream, steamed in a banana-leaf cup until it sets like a custard.

Massaman curry is usually built on chicken, potatoes, onions and which nut?

Roasted peanuts are stirred into massaman near the end, adding crunch to a curry whose richness comes from coconut milk; tamarind and palm sugar balance the sweetness.

The 'sweet' in the Thai name for green curry, kaeng khiao wan, refers to what?

In kaeng khiao wan, 'wan' (sweet) describes the light 'sweet green' colour of the curry, not its taste; the dish evolved in the early twentieth century under Rama VI and Rama VII.

Thai curries mainly differ from Indian ones in relying on what instead of dried spice mixes?

Thai curry pastes are pounded from fresh rhizomes, herbs and leaves — galangal, lemongrass, kaffir lime, chillies, garlic, shallots — whereas Indian curries lean on dried ground spices.

Phanaeng (panang) curry is distinguished from other Thai curries by what?

Panang is a thick, creamy, mildly sweet sauce: it uses coconut cream rather than thin milk, reduced until the oil separates, with little liquid and a hint of ground nuts.

Curry was introduced to Japan by whom, first appearing in Japanese cookbooks in 1872?

The British Royal Navy's curried stew, thickened with flour, reached Japan in the Meiji era and was adopted by the Imperial Japanese Navy; Japanese cookbooks described curry from 1872.

On which day of the week do Japan's Maritime Self-Defense Force ships traditionally serve curry?

Japan's Maritime Self-Defense Force serves curry every Friday, a custom said to help crews keep track of the days at sea; Yokosuka markets 'navy curry' on the tradition.

What are the three basic vegetables in Japanese curry?

Onions, carrots and potatoes are the standard trio simmered in Japanese curry, usually with beef or chicken, the sauce thickened with a block of curry roux.

In Japan, katsu curry refers exclusively to curry served with what?

Katsu is short for katsuretsu (cutlet): katsu curry is curry served with a breaded, deep-fried cutlet, usually tonkatsu or chicken katsu; in Britain the name has drifted to mean the sauce.

Japanese karē pan, reportedly created in 1927, was originally sold under what name?

Nakata Toyoharu of Tokyo's Meikado bakery (today's Cattlea) launched the bun in 1927 as 'yoshoku pan', or Western food bread, breading and deep-frying dough around a curry filling.

Which company operates Japan's largest chain of curry restaurants?

Ichibanya, founded in Aichi in 1978, operates the Curry House CoCo Ichibanya chain of more than 1,300 restaurants in Japan plus outlets abroad; House Foods became its majority owner in 2015.

The Madras curry of British menus takes its name from a city now called what?

Madras was renamed Chennai in 1996; the 'Madras curry' of British menus, a hot, red, tomato-heavy sauce, is a British curry-house invention rather than a Tamil dish.

The balti was developed in the 1970s in which English city, home to the 'Balti Triangle'?

The balti emerged in Birmingham's Sparkbrook area in the 1970s, cooked fast over high heat in a thin pressed-steel bowl from which it is eaten; the Balti Triangle grew around Ladypool Road.

Jalfrezi was created in Bengal during the Raj for what purpose?

Jalfrezi began in Raj-era Bengal as a way to use up leftover meat by stir-frying it with green chillies, onions and peppers; a 2011 survey of British curry houses rated it the most popular dish.

Which dish traditionally sits at the top of a British curry-house heat scale?

Phall is the hottest dish on the traditional British curry-house scale, above vindaloo: a thick tomato-based curry loaded with fresh chillies, sometimes scotch bonnets or habaneros.

Which dry coconut-milk meat curry was named the world's most delicious dish in a 2011 CNN poll?

Rendang, the Minangkabau dish of beef slow-cooked in coconut milk and spices until dry, topped CNN's 2011 readers' poll of the world's most delicious foods.

Butter chicken was invented at which Delhi restaurant, which popularised it in the 1950s?

Moti Mahal in Delhi's Daryaganj, opened after Partition by Peshawar refugees Kundan Lal Gujral and Kundan Lal Jaggi, is credited with butter chicken, made from leftover tandoori chicken in a buttery tomato gravy.

Currywurst was invented in 1949 in West Berlin by whom?

Herta Heuwer mixed ketchup and curry powder obtained from British soldiers at her Charlottenburg snack stand on 4 September 1949 and registered the sauce as 'Chillup' in 1959.

Who co-created coronation chicken with Rosemary Hume for the 1953 coronation?

Constance Spry and Rosemary Hume of the Cordon Bleu school in London devised coronation chicken, cold chicken in a curry-and-apricot cream sauce, for the 1953 coronation banquet.

Bunny chow, a hollowed-out loaf of bread filled with curry, comes from which South African city?

Bunny chow comes from Durban, where it emerged around the 1940s as a portable meal: a quarter or half loaf of white bread is hollowed out and filled with curry.

Curry goat became a staple of Caribbean cooking thanks to whom?

The Indian diaspora brought curry to the Caribbean: indentured labourers from India, shipped to Trinidad, Guyana and Jamaica after slavery ended in the 1830s, adapted it to local goat.

The word dal comes from a Sanskrit root meaning what?

It refers to split pulses that need no soaking, and to the soups made from them; India is the world's largest pulse producer.

Laksa, the spicy coconut noodle soup of Malaysia and Singapore, originated in which cuisine?

Laksa is a Peranakan Chinese dish, born where Chinese settlers in the Straits married local cooking; its name may derive from Persian lakhsha, 'slippery', or Sanskrit laksha, 'many'.

Manchester's 'Curry Mile' is a stretch of which road?

The Curry Mile runs along Wilmslow Road through Rusholme, south of Manchester city centre, a strip once claimed as the largest concentration of South Asian restaurants in the UK.

Which Regent Street restaurant, opened in 1926, is the oldest Indian restaurant in the UK?

Veeraswamy, founded in 1926 by Edward Palmer, great-grandson of an English general and an Indian princess, is Britain's oldest surviving Indian restaurant and won a Michelin star in 2016.

What was the name of the Indian restaurant Sake Dean Mahomed opened in London in 1810?

The Hindoostane Coffee House, opened by Sake Dean Mahomed in 1810 near Portman Square, was Britain's first Indian restaurant; it closed within two years, and he later ran 'shampoo' baths in Brighton.

Curry ketchup is the standard sauce for currywurst and also for which Dutch fried snack?

The frikandel, a skinless minced-meat sausage deep-fried and sold at Dutch snack bars, is classically served 'speciaal' with curry ketchup, mayonnaise and chopped raw onion.

Which spices typically go into the North Indian finishing blend sprinkled on curries?

The classic North Indian finishing blend, the 'warm spices', typically combines cardamom, cinnamon, cumin, cloves and peppercorns, roasted and ground, and is sprinkled in near the end of cooking.

Soup curry, a thin broth-style curry with chunky vegetables, originated in which Japanese city?

Soup curry was born in Sapporo, where the restaurant Ajanta began serving a medicinal curry soup in the 1970s; the dish became a Hokkaido signature in the 1990s.

Which 18th- and 19th-century curry powder brands became British household names?

Crosse & Blackwell, trading under that name from 1830, and Sharwood's, founded by James Allen Sharwood in 1889, were the brands that put curry powder in British larders.

In China and Korea, curries are typically based on what?

Chinese and Korean curries are typically built on a commercial curry powder or instant roux — Korea's Ottogi launched its curry powder in 1969 — rather than fresh pastes or whole spices.

Burmese curries are traditionally cooked until which ingredient separates and floats on top?

Burmese curries are cooked si pyan, 'until the oil returns': onions, garlic and spices are fried in generous oil that separates and floats on top, a sign the curry is done.

When the Imperial Japanese Navy adapted British curry, what did it substitute for bread?

The Imperial Japanese Navy served the British-style curried stew over rice instead of bread, creating kare raisu, which spread nationwide as sailors returned home.