Madras Curry, and What it Means to be 'Authentic'

 

‘Authentic’ is a one of those words that’s thrown around a lot, but is surprisingly tricky to pin down. We want our recipes and restaurants to be authentic, in part I think because it demonstrates that we are discerning, educated consumers of food. We don’t often give much thought to the concept of authenticity because, to paraphrase United States Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart's famous quote about pornography, “we know it when we see it”.

But authenticity is a bit more slippery than that. It depends on culture – the culture of the person making the judgement, and the culture of the period and place they are comparing the item to. This might sound like I’m flinging us into the murky waters of complete subjectivity, but really I’m just asking for a bit of pedantry: be specific. An authentic bolognaise in Australia (real parmesan cheese!) might be somewhat different to that in Bologna.

With all that in mind, if I told you that today’s recipe was for Madras curry, which is a hot red curry which has its origins in the 1600s in the city of Madras in India, the word “authentic” would no doubt spring to mind. But what about if I told you that it was a recipe for a curry that was probably a British-Indian dish – and what’s more it evolved in Britain rather than India? Your enthusiasm might dim a bit, as the words ‘derivative’ and ‘authentic’ don’t sit comfortably together in our modern conception of food.

As a17th century Indian curry, Madras probably isn’t authentic. But as a British-Indian dish, Madras curry is a genuine cultural artefact.  British-Indian cuisine has been around for over 400 years, which for comparative purposes is as long as the Italians have been using tomatoes, and twice as long as European settlers have been living in Australia.

The popularity of Madras curry in Australia can be attested to by the fact that, to this day, you can purchase both curry powder and Madras curry powder from iconic brand Clive of India in Australian supermarkets. If you live in a country without the lingering supermarket-selection influence of the British Empire, you can make your own Madras curry powder by using one of these recipes.

This particular recipe produces a slightly tart curry of moderate heat. If you would like to try it but prefer a milder curry, you can slather it with yogurt, which is my wife’s go-to method of eating curry.

Here is the original 1896 recipe:

MADRAS DRY CURRY.—Cut 1lb. of meat into small pieces, slice one onion and fry it in butter to a light brown, then add one table - spoonful of Madras curry powder, one teacup- ful of water, one breakfastcupful of gravy, the juice of one lemon, and a little salt; stew all together till nearly dry, and send it up quite hot.    

RECIPES. (1869, March 6). The Australasian (Melbourne, Vic. : 1864 - 1946), p. 7.

Ingredients

450g of beef

1 large onion, sliced finely
2 t butter to fry
1T Madras curry powder
500ml stock
Juice of 1 lemon (4T)
Pinch of salt
 

Cooking Time

40 minutes. Put the rice cooker on 10 minutes in if you’d like some rice on the side (and who wouldn’t?)

 

Yield

2 hearty serves, with rice and veg
 

Method

Cut the meat into 1 inch cubes.

Melt the butter in a fryingpan, and when it begins to bubble add the sliced onion and beef.

Fry until both are light brown.

Add the madras curry powder, and stir it for a minute until aromatic. If you’re worried about burning it, you can take the pan off the stove for this step. (Burnt curry powder will go bitter. Now that I’ve said that, you’re probably worried about burning it, even if you weren’t beforehand. Sorry.)

Add the stock, lemon juice and salt, and stir to remove the fond from the pan. The fond it’s the delicious crispy bits of flavour that have stuck to the base of your pan. Unless you’re using a non-stick pan, in which case you’re seriously missing out.

Cook, stirring regularly, until the sauce has almost evaporated, and has stuck to the beef.

As in my second illustration, you can serve it with rice and some veggies. I steamed carrots, and then tossed them with 1 t honey and ½ t cinnamon. Then I attempted to ‘plate’ the dish like they do on Masterchef.  Needless to say I’m a better food historian than food stylist.

 

Water Souchy

Water Souchy, when you get right down to it, is fish in water with a bit of parsley.

Putting it like that makes the whole enterprise seem fairly pointless, if not a bit gross. But Water Souchy, like a classic Italian three ingredient tomato sauce, is beautiful in its simplicity. The parsley hides the sometimes muddy flavour of river fish, while the plain broth keeps the fish deliciously moist and tender as you and your family serve yourselves fishy titbits. It is a great addition to the modern table, and one that I haven't even heard a whisper about before reading the recipe below from 1865.

According to the excellent website Foods of England, the dish probably has Dutch origins, and was originally 'waterzootje'. Google translates this as "water mess" (Dutch readers, please feel free to correct me!). They go on to say that the dish may have arrived in England with William III of Orange, who is better known as the namesake of the Irish Orange Order than he is for simple fish preparations.

When the recipe resurfaces in the historical record in the early 1800s it is as a pub dish, served most frequently in the inns around Greenwich.

Recipes for Water Souchy pop up in all the usual Victorian Era suspects. Worth a mention is an earlier recipe from William Verril's 1759 A Complete System of Cookery. The opening line makes his views on Scandinavian cooking abundantly clear: "This is rather a Dutch dish, and for change no bad one."

As far as Water Souchy in the modern era goes, the only people who seem to be cooking it are me and a lovely man called Neil who is cooking his way through English Food by Jane Grigson (you can read about his exploits here). This is a pity because the dish is simple, healthy and tasty, which quite frankly is a trifecta of praise that you can rarely give to 17th century dishes.

Here is the recipe for 1865 that I worked from:

WATER SOUCHY OR SOODJEE. - This mode of dressing fish may be used for soles, flounders, and also fresh-water fish of almost   any description. The fish must be well cleaned and trimmed. If large, they must be cut in pieces; if not, they can be put whole into a stew-pan and covered with water. Boil all the pairings, and parsley leaves and roots cut into shreds, and skim it carefully when it boils. Take care that the fish is not overdone. Serve it up in a deep dish or tureen, with its own gravy, which should be rich and clear, and send up with it brown bread and butter.
 

RECIPES. (1865, August 5). The Australasian (Melbourne, Vic. : 1864 - 1946), p. 3.

'Murray River Cod', State Library of New South Wales, http://trove.nla.gov.au/version/18548424

Ingredients

A 500g (1 pound) freshwater fish, such as Murray Cod, cleaned but whole

1 cup of parsley leaves and stems, chopped

¼ t salt
Brown bread and butter, to serve

Cooking Time

30 minutes, including fish wrangling time

Quantity

A main meal for three. May benefit from a vegetable side dish, to stave off scurvy.

Method

When you get your fish from the fishmonger, ask them to clean it. This means that it will be scaled and gutted but otherwise left intact. At home, just give it a rinse under cold water before use.

Put your fish and chopped parsley in a big saucepan and cover with cold water. It is easiest if you have a pan large enough to lay your fish flat in, but if you don't, sit it up so it looks like it is swimming around.

Bring the fish to a simmer, and then cook for 8 minutes. Carefully remove the fish onto a serving dish, and hook off as much of the non-edible bits as you can. Throw any successfully removed  skin, head, and trimmings back into the water, and boil for a further 10 minutes, and then strain it.

Pour a few ladles of this light broth over the top of the fish and serve it with buttered brown bread.