The Big Book of Curry Recipes (60 page)

Prawns, shrimps, or the flesh of boiled lobsters may be slowly heated through, and served in this currie sauce with good effect.

Modern Redaction

Ingredients:

1 whole, chicken, skinned and jointed

1 tbsp curry powder

1 tbsp plain flour

1 tbsp salt

50g (2 oz) butter

2 large onions, finely minced

4 shallots, finely minced

150ml (3/5 cup) gravy or stock

1 sour cooking apple, grated

1 cabbage heart, finely shredded

Combine the curry powder, flour and salt in a bowl then rub this mixture all over the chicken pieces. Heat the butter in a pan and when the foaming has subsided add the chicken pieces and fry briskly until nicely browned all over.

Remove the meat from the pan with tongs then add in the onions and shallots. Fry for about 5 minutes, or until browned then pour in the stock and add the apple and cabbage heart. Bring to a simmer, cover and cook for 10 minutes, or until the apple has broken down to a pulp. You should have a thick gravy at this point (if it is too thick add a little more stock or water.) Return the meat to the pan, bring back to a simmer, cover and cook for about 40 minutes, or until the chicken pieces are tender. Shake the pan occasionally during this time to prevent burning.

The meat should be cooked through and the gravy should be almost dry. Turn into a serving dish and serve accompanied by boiled rice.

Curried Gravy

Curried Gravy is a traditional British recipe, based on Eliza Acton’s recipe of 1845, for a classic Victorian gravy sauce of a meat stock flavoured with onions, coconut flesh and curry powder acidified with mango or apple.

This is a traditional British recipe redacted from Eliza Acton’s 1845 volume
Modern Cookery
, the first classic Victorian cookbook.

Original Recipe

CURRIED GRAVY.

The quantity of onion, eschalot, or garlic used for a currie should be regulated by the taste of the persons for whom it is prepared; the very large proportions of them which are acceptable to some eaters, preventing others altogether from partaking of the dish. Slice, and fry gently in a little good butter, from two to six large onions a bit of garlic, and four or five eschalots, or none of either), when they are coloured equally of a fine yellow-brown, lift them on to a sieve reversed to drain; put them into a clean saucepan, add a pint and a half of good gravy, with a couple of ounces of rasped cocoa-nut, or of any of the other condiments we have already specified, which may require as much stewing as the onions (an apple or two, for instance), and simmer them softly from half to three quarters of an hour, or until the onion is sufficiently tender to be pressed through a strainer. We would recommend that for a delicate currie this should always be done; for a common one it is not  necessary; and many persons prefer to have the whole of it left in this last. After the gravy has been worked through the strainer, and again boils, add to it from three to four dessertspoonsful of currie-powder and one of flour with as much salt as the gravy may require, the whole mixed to a smooth batter with a small cupful of cream. Simmer it from fifteen to twenty minutes, and it will be ready for use. Lobster, prawns, shrimps, macaroni, hard-boiled eggs, cold calf’s head, and various other meats may be heated and served in it with advantage. For all of these, and indeed for every kind of currie, acid of some sort should be added. Chili vinegar answers well when no fresh lemon-juice is at hand.

Onions, 2 to 6 (garlic, 1 clove, or eschalots, 4 to 5, or
neither
); fried a light brown. Gravy, 1 1/2 pint ; cocoa-nut, 2 oz. (3, if very young) : 1/2 to 3/4 hour. Currie-powder, 3 to 4 dessertspoonsful; flour, 1 dessertspoonful; salt, as needed; cream, 1 small cupful: 15 to 20 minutes.

Obs
.—In India, curds are frequently added to curries, but that may possibly be from their abounding much more than sweet cream in so hot a climate.

Modern Redaction

Ingredients:

3 large onions, thinly sliced

1 garlic clove, thinly sliced

4 shallots, thinly sliced

900ml (3 3/4 cups) good meat stock

60g (2 oz) fresh coconut flesh, finely grated

200g (7 oz) green mango (or cooking apple), finely grated

3 dessertspoons curry powder

1 dessertspoon plain flour

salt, to taste

200ml (4/5 cup) double cream

butter for frying

lemon juice, or chilli vinegar to taste

Method:

Melt a little butter in a pan. Add the garlic, onion and shallots and fry for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, or until the onions are golden brown. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside on kitchen paper to drain.

Transfer the onions to a clean pan and add the grated mango, meat stock and grated coconut. Bring to a simmer, cover the pan and cook gently for about 40 minutes. Take off the heat then either puree with a stick blender or pass through a fine-meshed sieve.

Turn the purée into a pan and work in the curry powder. Mix the flour with the cream to form a smooth paste and whisk this into the gravy. Bring just to a boil, reduce to a simmer and cook gently for 15 minutes to thicken.

Season to taste with salt and lemon juice and serve hot as a curried gravy to accompany seafood, white meats or fowl.

A Real Indian Pilau

A Real Indian Pilau is a traditional British recipe, based on Eliza Acton’s recipe of 1845, for a classic Victorian one pot-dish of chicken cooked with rice in a lightly-spiced bacon stock base.

This is a traditional British recipe redacted from Eliza Acton’s 1845 volume
Modern Cookery
, the first classic Victorian cookbook.

Original Recipe

A REAL INDIAN PILAW.

Boil three pounds of bacon in the usual manner; take it out and drop into the same pan a pair of fowls compactly trussed as for boiling. In three quarters of an hour, unless very large, they will be sufficiently cooked ; but they should be thoroughly boiled. When they are so, lift them out, and place a hot cover and thick cloth over them. Take three pints and a half of the liquor in which they were boiled, and add to it when it again boils, nearly two pounds of well washed Patna rice, three onions, a quarter of an ounce each of cloves and pepper-corns, with half as much of allspice, tied loosely in a bit of muslin. Stew these together very gently for three quarters of an hour. Do not stir them as it breaks the rice. Take out the spice and onions; lay in the fowls if necessary, to heat them quite through, and dish them neatly with the rice heaped smoothly over them. Garnish the pilaw with hot hard-boiled eggs cut in quarters, or with fried forcemeat-balls, or with half rings of onion fried extremely dry. The bacon, heated apart, should be served in a separate dish.

Obs
.—This is a highly approved receipt supplied to us by a friend who had long experience of it in India; but we would suggest that to be
really cooked
so as to render it wholesome in this country, à larger quantity of liquid should be added to it, as one pint (or pound) will absorb three pints of water or broth: and the time allowed for stewing it appears to us insufficient for it to become really tender.

A Persian Pillow is made much in the same manner, sometimes with morsels of fried kid mixed with the rice.

Bacon, 3 lbs., 1 1/2 to 2 hours; fowls, 2. Rice, nearly 2 lbs. Broth from bacon and fowls, 3 1/2 pints; onions, 3; cloves and peppercorns, 1/4 oz. each; allspice, 1 drachm: 3/4 hour.

Modern Redaction

Ingredients:

675g (1 1/2 lb) bacon joint

1 chicken, prepared and trussed for boiling

400g (3 cups) Basmati rice, washed and drained

1l (4 cups) reserved broth from boiling

2 onions, whole

7.5g (1/4 oz) cloves

7.5g (1/4 oz) black peppercorns

3g (1/8 oz) allspice berries

Method:

Bring a large pan of water to a boil, add the bacon joint and boil for 50 minutes, or until the bacon is tender. Remove the bacon from the pan and set aside then add the chicken to the pan. Bring back to a boil and cook for about 40 minutes, or until the chicken is tender.

Remove the chicken and set aside then measure out 1l of the cooking stock. Pour into a pan and bring to a boil then stir in the Basmati rice along with the onions and spices (it is easiest if you tie the spices in a muslin bag). Bring to a simmer, cover the pan and cook gently for 45 minutes.

At this point remove the onions and the spice bag. Place the chicken back into the pan and cook for about 15 minutes, or until the rice is dry and the chicken is heated through. Arrange the rice on a serving dish and place the chicken on top. Garnish with halved, hard-boiled eggs and crisp-fried onions and serve.

Kedgeree

Kedgeree is a traditional British recipe, based on Eliza Acton’s recipe of 1845, for a classic Victorian breakfast curry of fish and cooked rice flavoured with cayenne pepper and bound with egg.

This is a traditional British recipe redacted from Eliza Acton’s 1845 volume
Modern Cookery
, the first classic Victorian cookbook.

Original Recipe

KEDGEREE OR KIDGEREE AN INDIAN BREAKFAST DISH.

Boil four ounces of rice tender and dry as for currie, and when it is cooled down put it into a saucepan with nearly an equal quantity of cold fish taken clear of skin and bone, and divided into very small flakes or scallops. Cut up an ounce or two of fresh butter and add it, with a full seasoning of cayenne, and as much salt as may be required. Stir the kedgeree constantly over a clear fire until it is very hot; then mingle quickly with it two slightly beaten eggs. Do not let it boil after these are stirred in ; but serve the dish when they are just
set
. A Mauritian chantey may be sent to table with it. The butter may be omitted, and its place supplied by an additional egg or more.

Cold turbot, brill, salmon, soles, John Dory, and shrimps, may all be served in this form.

Modern Redaction

This is a very interesting recipe, especially as it’s nothing like modern kedgerees (which are flavoured with curry powder and do not contain scrambled egg [though they can contain hard-boiled eggs]). Rather, this is more like egg-fried rice seasoned with cayenne pepper.

Ingredients:

120g (1 cup) rice, boiled until tender and drained

120g (1 cup) cold, cooked fish, boned and flaked

30g (1 oz) butter, chopped

cayenne pepper, to taste

salt, to taste

2 eggs, lightly beaten

Method:

When the rice is cold, combine in a pan with the flaked fish and butter. Season to taste with cayenne pepper and salt then allow to heat through, stirring occasionally. When the rice mixture is very hot, stir in the beaten eggs. Stir to combine with the rice and fish and allow the eggs to just set.

Take off the heat and turn onto a warmed serving dish. Serve accompanied by chutney.

Skate Curry

Skate Curry is a traditional British recipe, based on Alexis Soyer’s recipe of 1849, for a classic dish of boiled skate wings served with a curried onion and apple sauce. This is a traditional British recipe redacted from Alexis Soyer’s 1849 volume
The modern Housewife or Ménagère
, a classic Victorian cookbook.

Original Recipe

566. SKATE CURRY.—Plain boil about two pounds of skate with a piece of the liver, which put upon a dish without a napkin, previously well draining off the water; whilst the fish is boiling cut two onions in slices, which put into a stewpan, with an ounce of butter, and fry of a lightish brown colour; then mix in a tablespoonful of curry powder with a teaspoonful of flour, and a pint of good broth, set it upon the fire, keeping it stirred, and when boiling, put in a good-sized apple cut into slices, let boil until it is reduced to about half, when rub it through a tammy or hair sieve, pour it again into a stewpan, and when hot, pour over the fish, and serve with rice separately. This being so very delicate, requires great care in cooking it, or it will get very unsightly.

Modern Redaction

Ingredients

2 skate wings

small piece of the skate liver

2 onions, sliced

30g (1 oz) butter

1 tbsp curry powder

1 tsp plain flour

600ml (2 1/2 cups) good stock, hot

1 cooking apple, peeled, cored and sliced

Method:

Bring a pan of lightly-salted water to a boil and add the skate wings and liver. Reduce to a simmer, cover and cook for about 25 minutes, or until tender.

In the meantime, melt the butter in a pan. Add the onion slices and fry for about 8 minutes, or until golden brown. Mix together the flour and curry powder, scatter over the top and mix in to form a roux. Whisk in the hot stock and bring to a boil.

Add the apple slices, bring back to a boil and continue cooking for about 15 minutes, or until the volume has reduced by half. Puree the mixture and pass through a fine-meshed sieve. Return to the heat and allow to warm through.

When the skate wings are cooked, drain and arrange on a warmed serving dish. Pour over the curry sauce and serve immediately.

Curried Rice

Curried Rice is a traditional British recipe, based on Charles Elmé Francatelli’s recipe of 1861, for a classic starter of boiled rice that’s finished by frying in butter flavoured with curry paste.

This is a classic recipe for a Victorian version of Curried Rice that’s derived from the chef, Charles Elmé Francatelli’s 1861 volume,
The Cook’s Guide and Housekeeper’s & Butler’s Assistant
. Below you will find both the recipe in its original form and a modern redaction.

Original Recipe

No. 301.— CURRIED RICE.

Boil a pound of rice as indicated in No. 227 ; fry it in a stew pan or saucepan, with a little fresh butter and a spoonful of Captain White’s excellent curry paste; stir lightly together, and serve hot.

Modern Redaction

Ingredients:

400g (3 cups) rice (about 60g per person)

60g (2 oz) butter