The ongoing search for the perfect ‘curry’

‘Curry‘

Noun: “A dish of meat, vegetables, etc., cooked in an Indian-style sauce of hot-tasting spices and typically served with rice.”

Verb: “To prepare or flavour (food) with a sauce of hot-tasting spices.”

(definition from Oxford Languages)

Origins: “Curry is an anglicised form of the Tamil word ‘kari’ meaning ‘sauce’ or ‘relish for rice’ that uses the leaves of the curry tree (Murraya koenigii).  The word kari is also used in other Dravidian languages, namely in Malayalam, Kannada and Kodava with the meaning of ‘vegetables (or meat) of any kind (raw or boiled), curry’”.

(A Dravidian Etymological Dictionary)

As with so many other things in modern popular culture, the word ‘curry’ is a bastardised English umbrella term.  One that was created to describe all manner of distinctly different types of cuisine from the Indian subcontinent.  Or to quote food historian Lizzie Collingham and the author of the definitive tome ‘Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors’; “most likely an English bastardisation of a Portuguese bastardisation of the Tamil world ‘kari’ – which was used to describe spices or seasoning.”  So, there you go.

In Britain, ‘curry’ grew vastly in popularity during the Victorian era and Queen Victoria was said to be a great lover of spiced dishes.  In fact, she even employed two Indian chefs to prepare her curried lunches especially.  The ‘classic’ British buffet dish and sandwich-filler; Coronation Chicken stems from this royal association after it was created for Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation banquet in 1953.  It is thought that it was directly inspired by the Jubilee Chicken dish which was created for George V’s silver jubilee in 1935 and also contained cold cuts of chicken, curry powder and mayonnaise.  Creative cookery at its most innovative. 

The number of ‘curry houses’ or more upmarket ‘Indian restaurants‘ started to increase in the 1950s and 1960s before reaching a peak in the 1970s.  Part of the success of these new curry houses was down to the fact that they still served alcohol well into the early hours of the morning at a time when most pubs would stop serving at 11pm.  In 1983, there were over 3,500 Indian restaurants open in the UK and today Bangladeshis still run approximately 85-90 percent of these eateries.  

However, the food in the majority of Indian restaurants has been anglicised and tailored for British palates and you would struggle to find a lot of the dishes on the menu in India.  For example, Chicken Tikka Masala is thought to have been invented in Britain and directly derived from the Northern Indian dish Butter Chicken, whilst the British Indian variation of Vindaloo is much spicier than the original which was a key component of Goan cuisine and was created especially for curry houses, with the addition of potatoes and chilli peppers.  The Balti on the other hand makes no secret of its humble origins, being introduced to menus in Birmingham in the early 1970s (although it may have been inspired by Northern Pakistani cuisine). 

I’m going to contradict myself now and will talk about ‘curry’ or ‘curries’ for the rest of this article.  I personally find that there is nothing more satisfying to cook than a curry.  From softening the onions and garlic and then adding the spices to form the base, to browning the meat or adding vegetarian substitutes such as chickpeas or lentils, to adding tomatoes or stock and gently simmering the stew, the whole process is incredibly therapeutic.

The food we eat is intrinsically tied up with memories too.  Whenever we would visit my paternal grandmother who was half-Indian and raised in Meghalaya, a curry or dhal would inevitably be on the stove and the fragrant smell would hit you as soon as you walked into the house.  My dad was delighted when I started cooking and bringing home curries in Food Technology classes at school and we discovered that cardamom pods were a fine addition to a Chicken Madras – although there is some dispute about whether the dish actually originated in Madras (now Chennai) or once again, in the British curry houses of the 1960s.  My dad had rarely eaten cardamom pods as a youngster because it turned out that Grandma didn’t like them!  Although initially wary of hot food, my mum also became partial to milder curries after meeting my dad and she would often make tasty meals for us like the sweet and sour Hawaiian Chicken on a Friday or Saturday night – learning many of the recipes from her Indian mother-in-law. 

I remember experiencing a proper high-end Indian restaurant for the first time whilst studying in Cardiff too.  My sister Rachel and brother-in-law Stuart had visited me for the weekend in March 2006 and after a day of sinking pints and watching the Six Nations rugby in various pubs on the side roads off St Mary’s Street, they treated me to a slap-up meal at the city’s Spice Quarter, located on the site of the former Brain’s Brewery.  The uber-attentive service and having the table tended to by three or four waiters at any one time gave me an idea of what to expect when I eventually visited India some 13 years later.

Talking of university, there was also the much-loved but at times slightly questionable Kismet.  Located on the rough and ready Cardiff thoroughfare City Road, Kismet became the venue of choice for various friends’ birthday celebrations each year.  Unbelievably cheap even for a student’s budget, a main course would set you back in the region of £3.50, plus a pound for a naan or rice.  Once my friend Emily and I ordered a bottle of red wine to share and two arrived on our table.  We apologised and sent one back, only to be told that it was buy one, get one free on bottles of wine that evening.  Of course.  At £5 per bottle, we were not complaining.  Kismet also specialised in takeaway ‘doggy bags’ as their portions were rather on the large side.  I can still visualise my old housemate Rhys running into the restaurant’s kitchen after a poor waiter, convinced that he was about to throw his leftover food away and not into the prerequisite doggy bag.  How the bars or clubs we went to afterwards felt about having to contend with a cloakroom full of takeaway curry bags remains uncertain.  Kismet has since closed and is no longer a fixture of student life in Cardiff. 

During the London years, going ‘for a curry’ became a regular part of post-work socialising.  I was once chuffed to find myself dining next to former Yardbirds guitarist and ‘Hi Ho Silver Lining’ singer Jeff Beck at the famous Gaylord Restaurant on Mortimer Street.  The restaurant opened its doors in 1966, was a one-time favourite of The Beatles and even in 2015 it was old-school in every detail – the food and service was excellent though.  Sadly Gaylord shut its doors in 2019 after 53 years of serving “upscale Mughlai cuisine” originating from North India.  

Other notable London curry houses included the huge, raucous and noisy Pakistani eatery Tayyabs in Whitechapel; a place that was as much renowned for its beer as its food (you could order it by the crate if you were celebrating) and the quaint, charming Agra Restaurant on Whitfield Street in Fitzrovia.  Opened in 1954, the place is like stepping back in time and is still run by members of the same family today.  The Indian Veg (or Indian Veg Bhelpoori House in full) on Chapel Market in Islington specialised in no-frills, yet tasty all-you-can-eat vegetarian fare for £6.50 – its walls covered with pro-vegetarianism slogans and propaganda posters.  Its proximity to The Lexington venue made it an ideal pre-gig fuelling station of choice. 

Clockwise (from top left); 1.) The queue for Tayyabs in Whitechapel. 2.) The Agra Restaurant on Whitfield Street, London. 3.) The one-in-a-kind Indian Veg, Islington, London. 4.) The Indian Veg’s propaganda-laden interior.

Then there were the two restaurants that also offered rooms for the night as well; the Indian YMCA on Fitzroy Square (I worked around the corner from here for a couple of years so it became a favourite spot for lunch) and The India Club on The Strand.  Both are long-standing London institutions serving hearty and wallet-friendly Indian food.  Situated up an unassuming staircase at 143 Strand, the latter was launched in 1951 by The Indo League with the aim of “furthering Indo-British friendship in the post-independence era” and as with the Agra Restaurant, it is like stepping into a time capsule.  Given its history, I have often found myself wondering if my grandparents would have visited The India Club in the 1950s.  Let’s hope that all of these well-loved London institutions can survive the current hospitality industry crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Clockwise (from top left); 1.) The bar at The India Club, 143 Strand, London. 2.) The India Club’s dining room – practically unchanged since 1951. 3.) The canteen at The Indian YMCA, Fitzroy Square, Central London.

On my trip to India at the end of 2019, it would be an understatement to say that I ate well.  However, I often didn’t eat at fancy places, instead preferring local recommendations or low-key, hidden-away gems.  The food I ate with my relatives in Shillong was delicious and included regional specialities such as Doh khleh (a sort-of salad made with parts of the pig’s head) and Doh sniang nei iong – pork cooked with sesame.  However, the food in Meghalaya was actually milder and not as spicy as in the rest of India.  In Kerala in the south, a lot of the dishes were lighter and more fragrant, perhaps as a result of using coconut oil rather than ghee, whereas in Goa fish and more Portuguese-influenced fare reigned supreme.  Mumbai and Pune were culinary melting pots, as with any other metropolis, whilst in Chennai there were numerous options when it came to street food, as well as fiery appetisers like the city’s signature Chicken 65 (invented by the Head Chef at the Buhari Hotel and allegedly containing 65 chillis per kilogramme of chicken).

Just a snapshot of some of the dishes I had the privilege of trying during my visit to India.

However, the distinction of being the tastiest dish I sampled was reserved for the Dakshin Bar & Kitchen; a simple Punjabi restaurant off a busy main road in the Fort district of Mumbai that had the Indian Super League playing on big screens on the wall.  I ordered Chicken Patiala one evening without thinking too much about it and it was one of the best things I ate during my time in India.  It was unusual too; a thin egg omelette prepared and then cooked in the highly-spiced rich, creamy chicken curry.  All washed down with an ice-cold Kingfisher, of course.  

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Over these past 18 months both in India and now in Italy, some of my favourite discoveries have been places that I’ve stumbled upon by chance or that have been a word-of-mouth recommendation from a local.  The delicious Chicken Patiala at Dakshin was no exception.

To find out how to make the dish, check out the short video below courtesy of Chef Smita at Get Curried.  In my next post, I’ll be sharing a recipe of my own!