Curry

Curry is a dish with a sauce seasoned with spices, mainly associated with South Asian cuisine. It is not to be confused with leaves from the curry tree, though some curries do include curry leaves. Curry is also found in the native cuisines of many South East Asian and East Asian countries due to ancient contact with South Asia.

There are many varieties of curry. The choice of spices for each dish in traditional cuisine depends on regional cultural traditions and personal preferences. Such dishes have names that refer to their ingredients, spicing, and cooking methods. Outside the Indian subcontinent, a curry is a dish from Southeast Asia which uses coconut milk or spice pastes and is commonly eaten over rice. Curries may contain fish, meat, poultry, or shellfish, either alone or in combination with vegetables. Others are vegetarian. Dry curries are cooked using small amounts of liquid, which is allowed to evaporate, leaving the other ingredients coated with the spice mixture. Wet curries contain significant amounts of sauce or gravy based on broth, coconut cream or coconut milk, dairy cream or yogurt, or legume purée, sautéed crushed onion, or tomato purée.

Curry powder, a commercially prepared mixture of spices marketed in the West, was first exported to Britain in the 18th century when Indian merchants sold a concoction of spices, similar to garam masala, to the British East India Company returning to Britain. Provided by Wikipedia