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A curry is any of a great variety of distinctively spiced dishes, best-known in Indian and Thai cuisine, but found in many other countries.
The term curry derives from kari, a Tamil word meaning sauce and referring to various kinds of dishes common in South India made with vegetables or meat and usually eaten with rice. The term is used more broadly, especially in the Western Hemisphere, to refer to almost any spiced, sauce-based dishes cooked in various south and southeast Asian styles, or to anything that one might eat in an Indian restaurant or curry house. This imprecise umbrella-term is largely an artifact of the British raj. Well-known Indian dishes include Korma, Madras, Vindaloo, Butter Chicken and Rogan JoshRogan Josh is a tomato-based lamb curry dish. Rogan Josh is the name of a racehorse, winner of the 1999 Melbourne Cup. Indian cuisine.. Curry used in this sense is often accompanied by breadFor the 1970s rock and roll band, see Bread (band). British Isles, North America and Europe often eat white pre-sliced bread. Breads are a group of staple foods prepared by baking, steaming, or frying a dough consisting minimally of flour and water. Salts like naanNaan is a round flat bread made of flour. Naans are a staple accompaniment to hot savoury meals in Central and South Asia, including the Punjab and Rajasthan in north-west India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Uzbekistan and the surrounding region. In Turki, rotiRoti is the Hindi and Urdu word for bread. In Gujarati it is rotli . Generically, the word roti may refer to many different kinds of bread, such as chapati and puri, each with its specific name. It is usually used to refer to the round flat unleavened bre or popadum s.
In Tamil cuisine , from which the word originated, curry refers to any dry preparation involving meat or vegetables shallow-fried with dry spices. Used as a word in itself, it usually means chickenA chicken is a type of domesticated bird which is usually raised as a type of poultry. It is believed to be descended from the wild Asian Red Junglefowl, Gallus gallus''. Habits In the wild, junglefowl sleep in trees. Chickens are omnivores and will feed curry or mutton curry; the dishes made with vegetables are usually referred to with the vegetable as prefix - e.g. PotatoThe potato Solanum tuberosum is a perennial tuber of the Solanaceae, or nightshade, family, which is one of the most widely used vegetables in Europe and North and South America. There are thousands of varieties of potato in cultivation. The potato is unr curry, Beans curry. Curry is usually eaten with Rice and Sambar or Rasam .
In other varieties of Indian cuisine, curry is a sauce - sometimes considered a soup - made by stirring yoghurt into a roux of ghee (clarified butter) and besan ( chick pea flour). The spices added vary, but usually include turmeric and black mustard seed.
In British cuisine, the word curry denotes a sauce-based dish flavored with curry powder. A dry preparation of meat or vegtables (especially potatoes) may be served curried, meaning they have been coated with a curry powder preparation then roasted, shallow-fried, or grilled (broiled) to a dark brownish colour. Additionally curry sauce may be served warm as a condiment to other dishes such as chips.
The vast majority of British "Indian" restaurants are in fact Bangladeshi, although the menu will nearly always be influenced by the wider Indian Subcontinent (and frequently other neighbouring cuisines such as Persian and Nepalese). They have developed the Curry to such a level that it has become an integral part of British cuisine, meaning some Indian food is actually exported from the United Kingdom to India. (There was even an instance of an Englishman asking for a local curry to be sent to Australia and while resident in London, a craving made actor Tom Cruise pay hundreds of pounds for his favourite dish to be flown and delivered to him in Rome). The dominance of Bangladeshi "Indian" restaurants has led to many others zealously promoting "authenticity" in particular cuisine from either India or a specific area of that country.
British curries are generally arranged by strengths with the most commonly found dishes and menu descriptions being the following:
Other dishes may be featured with varying strengths, with those of northern Indian Subcontinent origin or influence, such as Butter-Chicken tending to be mild, and recipies from the south of India being among the hotter examples.
Britain is in fact the home of two widely familiar "Indian" dishes, Chicken Tikka Massala and Balti (which is a curry designed to be eaten with a large naan bread).
In the late 1990s, chicken tikka masala was commonly referred to as the "British national dish", being apparently the single commonest dish in the country, available (albeit in frozen, microwavable form) on intercity rail trains, and even used as a pizza topping.
Curries are not confined to India and the United Kingdom, British style curry restaurants are common and increasingly popular in Australia and New Zealand. Other countries have their own varieties of curry, well known examples include:
Other countries which have their own varieties of curry include: Bangladesh, Cambodia, Burma, Japan, Pakistan, and Singapore; and curry powder is used as an incidental ingredient in other cuisines, including for example a "curry sauce" (sauce au curry, sometimes even au cari) variation of the classic French béchamel.