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ChouDoufu

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Jun 21, 2008
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i learned something today.

my bottle of curry powder was running low, so hit the local markets to refill.
found a few places that sold curry powder, but reading the ingredients,
it was full of all sorts of weird stuff....mustard and coriander and cumin and
turmeric....an endless list of filler. damn cheap chinese spices! according
to the ingredient listing, it didn't contain any curry at all!!!! what a ripoff!!!

oh....what's that? curry itself isn't actually a spice? you're kidding, right?

and now garlic. when they say a clove of garlic. does that mean one
of them dinky little sections, or is it a whole bulb?
 
Sorry, what do you mean "they"? A recipe? If a recipe calls for garlic, they just mean 1 clove (section). Here in Oregon, they are not that dinky!! When a recipe calls for the whole head of garlic, then it means the whole head. Oftentimes a recipe will say, mince 2 cloves garlic -- ie, 2 sections.

Sadly, curry does not agree with me, so I don't cook with it. My only recollection of curry is from my father's stack of slides from the 1950's when we lived in Eritrea and at the market they had huge mountains of the spice, gold, orange, red..... red being the :eek: hottest. It does make sense that it is a blend of spices.

Wikipedia says.....
Curry powder is a mixture of spices of widely varying composition developed by the British during their colonial rule of India.
The word "Karhee" or "Kadhi" from which "curry" is derived, comes from Southern India and refers to a sauce of any kind. "Curry powder" was developed by Anand Kukadia, a so called business man, who wished to take the taste of Indian food home, without having to utilize fresh spices. It was first exported from India by Anand Kukadi. As a result "curry powder" in the Western world has a fairly standardized taste, but there are many different curry flavors in India. [1]
Curry powder was largely popularised after World War II, when immigrants from Southeast Asia moved to the UK. Still, curry powder did not become standardized, as immigrant households often had their own blends of curry powder.
The late 60s and early 70s saw a large increase of Indian food consumption by the UK populace. This also led to an increase of Indian restaurants. The tradition of keeping special blends of curry powder simply became uneconomical, and curry powder became increasingly standardized.
Indian cooks often have readier access to a variety of fresh spices than their native UK counterparts, and are more likely to make their own mixtures. Indeed, most Indian cooks will have their own specific mixtures for different recipes. These are often passed down from parent to child.
Most recipes and producers of curry powder usually include coriander, turmeric, cumin, and fenugreek in their blends. Depending on the recipe, additional ingredients such as ginger, garlic, fennel seed, cinnamon, clove, mustard seed, green cardamom, black cardamom, mace, nutmeg, red pepper, long pepper, and black pepper may also be added.
It is also the name given to a different mixture of spices that include curry leaves, which is used in South and East Indian cuisine.

Enjoy!

Marguerite
 
I also found out recently that Curry is a combination of spices. I had a recipe that called for it, didn't have any, so looked online to see what could be substituted, and sure enough, they said any one of the individual ingredients or a combination of several or all of them, depending on what taste you are looking for. I had mustard, cumin, and coriander, so that is what I used.

A clove of garlic is a section. A bulb (or head) contains about 10 cloves. Some cloves are larger than others so I kind of play it by ear. I tend to use it liberally! I also keep a jar of minced garlic in the fridge for those days that I don't have fresh.
 
i'm still new at this cooking stuff. when i lived in the big city in yunnan province, there
were 100 little food stalls within a few blocks, each of which carried 20-30 yummy
dishes. now in a small town, lacking in creativity, within a few blocks have 20 or
so food stalls, all of which carry boiled noodles. so i'm on my own.

how was i supposed to know curry was a mix? i thought juan valdez picked those
lovely curry peppers by hand from the curry bushes at their peak of curryness.

garlic isn't a problem, whenever a recipe calls for a clove, i just throw in
two bulbs. you can never have two much garlic. i was just wondering.

we've got a local farmers' market downstairs, just outside my building. year-round
fresh everything, brought in from the surrounding fields. amazing the variety of
ingredients available, yet never appear in the restaurants. still looking for butter,
margarine and cheese, that don't seem to exist in this province.
 
I love Asian foods and Curries.

I love Asian foods and Curries.

Yes, curry is a combination of spices, not just one. I cook with curry all the time and love it. I use coconut milk and chicken broth to make the curry sauce. Because we love their foods we've gone to Chinese and other Asian restaurants for years but I thought, why don't I learn to cook these foods myself, so I bought a Thai cookbook and am learning the recipe's. I go to the chinese import store here in town to get the spices and ingredients I need. Have met some really great people to help me out and teach me about the different vegetables and how to cook them. I tried Thai Chicken Lettuce Wraps last night. It was a big hit with my husband and if I would't have stopped him he would have eaten it all. When I cook I always make a double batch. We also love Chinese and Indonesian foods. I was born and raised in The Netherlands and just like we have a lot of Hispanics living in AZ we had Indonesian people living amongst us when I was growing up. Because of this I learned to appreciate Indonesian foods and I ate it a lot. I changed from white rice to brown rice though and substitute a healthier noodle when it calls for noodles. I don't care much for the American foods and would eat Asian foods any day of the week.
 
My husband and I had a "curry" last night for dinner (it was very good) and yes, it is a combination of spices.

Kim
 
Hey your doing better than me. When I first got my apt and was going to make a roast beef for some guy, I took the recipe with me. I ended up not making it, because none of the stores sold roast beef. they just had eye roasts chuck roast ect :) and as for the clove of garlic, I bought a bottle of Cloves and was surprised it wasn't the same thing.
Justin is very happy Microwaves were invented :)
Now I know all these neat cooking things because I tend to get addicted to the food network, I wish they had that when I was growing up
 
Lynlw said:
Hey your doing better than me. When I first got my apt and was going to make a roast beef for some guy, I took the recipe with me. I ended up not making it, because none of the stores sold roast beef. they just had eye roasts chuck roast ect :) and as for the clove of garlic, I bought a bottle of Cloves and was surprised it wasn't the same thing.
Justin is very happy Microwaves were invented :)
Now I know all these neat cooking things because I tend to get addicted to the food network, I wish they had that when I was growing up
Click to expand...

:D:D that's so funny! Reminds me of the young bride who went to the store and was searching and searching. The clerk offered help but she said no. She walked the aisles and searched some more. Clerk asked what she was looking for and she she said she had a recipe from her friend that was for a scratch cake but she was unble to find in this store any scratch.:D;)
 
it tends to be a good form of exercise, looking for stuff. have to wander all over town
trying to find things, and all that walking adds up. and then once you find something,
you must buy all of it, cause next time it won't be there. only one store carries
processed cheese food (american cheese), a different store carries mouthwash, two
stores carry deodorant, only two shops carry yogurt, another store has cinnamon.
i bought out the only three cans of tomato paste in town four months ago.

i found out why when a local store ran out of jelly beans. i was buying a bag every
couple days until they ran out. after a month, still hadn't restocked. when i asked
when, they said they won't carry them anymore, cause too many people buy them.

as for meat, there's no labeled parts in hygienic plastic trays. nope, you go out to
the veggie market where all the local farmers have brought their goods. in one corner
you can buy live fish, sometimes even shrimp. another corner has the ducks and
chickens, which come with their own woven bamboo 'bag' to carry home on the bus.
yet another corner has a series of tables for the laying out of various piece parts.
there's no 'chuck roast' or 'briscuit,' just chunks of meat. (hint: go in the morning,
especially in the summer when it hits 40 degrees) (another hint: buy the meat
farthest from the customer [think squeezing tomatoes]) (yet another hint: carry
lots of small bills to avoid meat-flavored change)
 
Lisa in Katy said:
So that's why the Chinese people are never fat!
Click to expand...

there's just no tradition of consuming dairy products in this part of the country.
up north, especially mongolia, is the dairy center. i'm sure it has health effects.
the average height in the south is about 10cm less than in the north. women
in this area are 1.50m and the men 1.60m (i'm 1.88). also seems to be high
incidence of scoliosis among the women. due to lack of calcium/dairy?

never fat? things have changed since those 1950's newsreels!!! now that we've
got the one-child policy, kids are spoiled. any free time is spent with the
grandparents at mcdonald's/kfc, or buying sweets. obesity among chinese children
is on the rise, and will be a major problem in a few years.
 
It sounds like America is spreading our nasty fast food habit. Too bad because I personally would take healthy stir fry any day! I understand how scoliosis would be a problem though without dairy. It's interesting that their bodies haven't adapted over time to a lower intake of calcium.
 
they have adapted....they're littler! no calcium? grow smaller bones.

i wonder about the stir-fry though. the average person goes through an awful lot of
cooking oil. it's not the healthy stir-fry in a couple tablespoons of oil that you're
thinking of, it's more like deep-fat frying! okay, that's an exaggeration, but with any
plate of stir-fried food, either at a restaurant or at someone's house, there will be
an inch of oil in the bottom.
 
Okay, you are ruining all my misconceptions!

I went to school with a large extended family of Vietnamese immigrants in the late 70's and early 80's. The food that they served at home, which is obviously different from Chinese, was very healthy, mostly vegetarian with steamed rice and noodles. When they ate meat it was usually fish or sometimes chicken. The food that they served to Americans in the "Chinese" restaurants that their families owned was more like what you are talking about. They always explained to me that they served what the Americans liked and they called it Chinese because Americans were more accepting of Chinese food at that time. It hadn't been that long since the USA had pulled their troops out of Vietnam.
 
ran out of electric yesterday, so had to recharge the card that i plug into
the 'lectric meter. while doing so, the lady next door had to look and see,
and nicely explained that i use too much electricity. naturally she had to
know how much i paid last time and long it lasted. turns out i use about
1/3 less than her family of three (per person). regardless, she insisted i
used too much, and it was all because as a westerner i always eat bread.

i'm not sure where this is going.....somehow we got onto the subject of
cooking oil, which she thinks is so much healthier than bread. ah, that's
where we're going. my one-liter bottle lasts about three months - mostly
used as a replacement for margarine when baking. my annual consumption:
four liters. she uses................200 liters.

and yes, her son is a little porker.
 
your posts are so interesting. I don't always respond, but I absorb your posts as they come along. thank you for showing us another country. I really like that.
 
Your neighbor has an interesting concept of nutrition! And electricity! Funny. I guess it makes lots of sense to her. :)
 
I always thought that curry was another name for curcumin.

Maybe thats why when I use it in recipes it doesnt taste right:eek:
 
Here - you can make your own curry.

* 2 tablespoons whole cumin seeds, toasted
* 2 tablespoons whole cardamom seeds, toasted
* 2 tablespoons whole coriander seeds, toasted
* 1/4 cup ground turmeric
* 1 tablespoon dry mustard
* 1 teaspoon cayenne

Directions

Place all ingredients in a container with an airtight lid. Shake to combine. Store in a cool dry place for up to 6 months. When ready to use, grind and add to dishes according to taste.

I use an electric coffee grinder to grind spices.
 
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