Britons are Wild About Jeffrezi Curry
Curry is often voted as the favorite dish of Britain, which is not surprising given the wonderful spices and recipes that were imported from colonized India for years. In fact over six million Britons a day visit curry houses.
If you go to London and you go to the fashionable Indian restaurants everyone is enjoying curry. For years it was thought that this favorite dish of Londoners was masala. However last year the London Guardian did a study and lo and behold, the age old tikka masala is being replaced by a newer hotter dish called Jaifrezzi.
The survey, according to writer Eleanor Harding, was conducted in over ten thousand of Britain’s restaurants by the illustrious British Curry club. This indicates that Britons are enjoying their food hotter than they ever have before.
Twenty one percent of Britons liked Jafreeza the best with a chicken madras at 18 percent in popularity. Ten percent liked the medium-spicy dish of rogan josh while korma, a creamier milder dish was chosen by two percent.
In London many of the posh Indian restaurant owners claim the London is now the world center is to have great curry. Enam Ali who owns the very popular Le Raj restaurant notes this and that once a British person tries the spicier stuff it is hard to go back to the plain stuff. Chicken masala was always big in Britain but somehow not as authentic as Jaffreezi. Some restaurants still make the dish by dumping spices into a pot of Campbell’s tomato soup and pouring it over the chicken!
A basic jalfrezi recipe consists of green chilis, peppers, onion and tomatoes mixed with marinated meat (usually chicken) and oil in a thick sauce. The spices that give this dish its amazing flavor are cumin, coriander, chilies, garlic pepper, coriander and turmeric. The actual word Jalfrezi means to “hot-fry” or deep fry. The dish’s origin can be traced back to the 16th century.
The delicious dish also has a practical reason to exist. Leftover meat had its life extended when strong chilis were added to take away in strong taste. The dish has been in London many years. The word Jafreeza as a name for a curry dish first entered the English language after it was served up by local chefs in 1858. All chili dishes were thought as being a wonderful way to warm up during the damp English weather.