Curry Powder
Pulverize and mix well together the following: -Two ounces of turmeric, one ounce of ginger, one ounce of black pepper, two ounces of coriander seed, half an ounce of cummin seed, a quarter of an ounce of cayenne pepper and one quarter ounce of cinnamon. Keep in a widemouthed bottle closely corked.
A straightforward Anglo-Indian curry powder, given by weight rather than volume, which is the sensible way to do it. Nothing here needs correcting; a few things need translating.
- Weigh, do not scoopThe seven ounces total are dry weight, and ground spices vary enormously in density — two ounces of turmeric is roughly half a cup, while a quarter ounce of cinnamon is only about two or three teaspoons. A kitchen scale set to grams (57 g turmeric, 28 g each ginger and black pepper, 57 g coriander, 14 g cumin, 7 g each cayenne and cinnamon) reproduces it closely.
- Buy whole where you can"Pulverize" implies grinding, presumably in a mortar, and works best from whole spice. Coriander, cumin, peppercorns and cassia bark grind easily in a spice or coffee mill; turmeric and dried ginger are woody and hard on a blade, so pre-ground is the practical choice for those two.
- Toast or notThe recipe calls for no heat, as many English-language curry powder formulas of the period did not — the frying happened later, in the curry itself. Toasting the coriander and cumin briefly in a dry pan before grinding deepens the flavour considerably and does no harm to the proportions.
- Cinnamon means cassiaCommercial "cinnamon" in American shops of this era was usually cassia, the darker, hotter, more assertive bark. Use cassia rather than delicate Ceylon cinnamon if you want the blend to taste as intended.
- Heat levelA quarter ounce of cayenne in seven ounces of powder is mild by Indian standards. Doubling or tripling it changes nothing structurally.
- StorageThe wide-mouthed corked bottle is simply an airtight jar you can get a spoon into. Ground spice fades fast: this quantity is about a cup and a half, enough for a dozen or more dishes, so make a half batch unless you cook curry often, and keep it dark and cool rather than on a shelf above the stove.
- Why it is filed under SoupCurry powder in books of this era often did double duty as a soup seasoning, mulligatawny being the usual example. Nothing about the blend is soup-specific.
Curry powder is an English invention rather than an Indian one — a single fixed blend standing in for the many regional masalas an Indian cook would grind fresh for each dish. Commercial versions were sold in London from the late eighteenth century, and American housekeeping books later carried homemade formulas like this one, on the reasonable grounds that homemade was cheaper and fresher. The proportions here — turmeric and coriander dominant, cumin and cinnamon in support, cayenne restrained — are the standard Anglo-Indian pattern, and they explain why commercial curry powder still tastes overwhelmingly of turmeric and coriander. Its most common use in books of this period was mulligatawny, a soup whose name is generally traced to Tamil words for pepper water, which is why a spice blend turns up in the soup chapter at all.