British Curry is Like No Other in the World!

British curry is supposed to be so good that sometimes chefs say that it was actually the British invented curry. Of course this is not true because curry as a dish was technically was invented in India.  In India in the mid 1800s British cooks and housewives who relocated there during Colonial times had to learn Indian ways of cooking so that they could use the cheap local produce.  The result was the invention of a plethora of wonderfully inventive curries and chutneys that are still popular today.

A celebrity curry chef at the time was a Calvary officer named Colonel Arthur Kenny Hebert who wrote one of the first cook books about how to make curry. Published in 1878, Culinary Jottings for Madras still contains basic recipes for chicken and beef curries that are still popular in England today. The focus of the book was to make curries that were not as hot as the “molten” spicy curries that the natives were eating.  The curries were made with aromatic spices like cloves, cinnamon and cardamom.

By 1861 the milder British curries were common in many homes and recipes including imported curry powder were included in the famous cookbook by Mrs. Beeton known as the Book of Household Management.  Many of those curries included chopped apples or raisins to give the spicy curries a bit more of a milder sweet and sour flavor.  Usually her recipes called for the use of leftover meat such as turkey.  These curries would not just be served with rice. They would be served on toast or even on fluffy Wellingtons.

The British have had a love affair for curries for couple of centuries now. That is why in any supermarket in Britain you can buy a great variety of readymade curries and jars of curry.

In the seventies Chicken Tikka Masala was all the rage especially when served with pale yellow rice and chutneys.  This is chicken roasted in yogurt and slices and covered in a creamy tomato sauce. The British version is lightly sweeter than the Indian one.

It is still popular in British curry houses today.  In fact, given the rage for all things retro and seventies nowadays, curries done in the sweet and mild manner of Mrs. Beeton and Colonel Herbert have become quite popular.  In fact every, once a year, the British Curry awards are held in London and attract over a thousand celebrity participants including entertainment stars, politicians and people in the cooking and spice businesses.