Curry
There are few dishes which it is so difficult to get well done as a curry. In France, under the name of Kari, it is always bad. In England the vulgar theory is that, with the addition of some curry-powder, any good stew becomes a good curry. It is a great mistake. First of all, a curry differs from other stews in being always eaten with a dessert-spoon and fork-never, when rightly under. stood, with a knife and fork. This implies that it is exceedingly well done, and is cut or shred small. Secondly, it has no other accompaniment than the rice. Curry is never to be eaten at a house where the host offers you a potato with the rice. It is a sign that there is no garnish in his curry-no onions, no apples, no cocoanut: else he would not overlay all these with potatoes in addition to rice. On the difficulty of procuring a good curry-powder it is useless Curry to insist indeed, few people see the difficulty. There are good curry-powders at the shops, and that is enough for them. They have not grasped the fact that curry-powder is like salad dressing-a compound; and that as in the salad dressing some people like plenty of vinegar and little oil, while others wish for plenty of oil and very little vinegar, so in the curry-powder there are ingredients which should be increased or decreased to suit different tastes, and to combine with the different meats which are to be curried. All over India there is a curry for almost every province: at Madras one kind of curry; in Bengal another. In Ceylon they would never dream of taking curry-powder out of a bottle. The curry mixture is there made fresh on the day it is to be used in cooking; and it consists of a piece of green ginger, a few coriander and cumin seeds, two cloves of garlic, six small onions, one chili, eight peppercorns, a small piece of turmeric, a teaspoonful of butter, half a cocoanut, and half a lime. In England, the ginger of this receipt, the coriander and cumin seeds, the chili and the turmeric, are powdered, and sold in bottles under the name of curry-powder; and this is supposed to be all that is wanted the English cook, for the most part, ignoring the garlic and onion, the cocoanut and the lime; and expecting that, if any other flavour is needed, it will be supplied at table from the bottle of Bengal Chutney. Supposing a good powder is at hand-say Halford's-it is to be used in the following manner, which is a modification of a well-known receipt.
Take the white heart of a cabbage or a lettuce peeled down to the size of an egg; chop it fine, and add to it two apples in thin slices, the juice of a lemon, a saltspoonful of black pepper, and a tablespoonful of curry-powder--to be all well mixed together. Then take six onions that have been chopped fine and fried brown, a clove of garlic minced small, two ounces of fresh butter, two of flour, and one pint of beef gravy; boil them up, and when boiling add to them Custards the other set of ingredients containing the acids and spices. Let all be well stewed, and then add to it-cut or shredthe fish, flesh, or fowl for which this savoury mess has been prepared. Serve it with abundance of rice every grain of which should be separate. It is the rice in this combination that is the great attraction for many people. But in following this receipt the cook must use some discretion; first in regard to the acids, second in regard to the onions. One apple may contain as much acid as two ; and onions are of all sizes. So that here the receipt is very indefinite, and the cook has to be cautious.