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.

 

Rough and Ready Bengal Chutney

This should tell you how good the stuff is - when I went to photograph it, this was all that was left.

As Wild Colonial Grandfather would say, this one will put hairs on your chest. In relation to its mild modern equivalent, it is a second cousin, twice-removed, from the dodgy side of the family.

This is not a chutney that Stephanie Alexander would want to invite for high tea. This is a rough Colonial chutney and it will drink all your booze, spit on your floor, and steal your dog on the way out.

Though it does mellow with age, straight out of the gate it gives the impression that the world’s strongest flavours have met in your mouth to settle once and for all which is the toughest. For me, and anyone else who loves a kick in their condiments, this one is a real winner.

It livens up a bland dish like a stick of dynamite, and makes a truly mouth-watering glaze on roast meat or veg.

Of historical interest here is the authenticity of the recipe. Authenticity, in foodie terms, refers to how likely someone from the country of the dish’s origin would be to laugh in your face if you served it to them. Anyone who has been to a country Chinese restaurant and had “fried rice” consisting of mixed frozen vegetables boiled together with long grain rice would be forgiven for thinking that authentic multicultural food is a relatively new, urban phenomenon in Australia.

In reality, the Colonial period saw a brisk circulation of people, goods and ideas among the British colonies. Remember, this was the period when variants of the phrase “The Sun never sets on the British empire” had been so apt for so long that it was considered a cliché. Many colonists came by circuitous routes, such as my Cornish great-great-great uncle Henry Kneebone who arrived here after a thoroughly eventful stint in South Africa. Though there is some substitution of ingredients, this is very much a mid-19^th century Bengali Chatni, right down to its intense saltiness and heat (both of which I have scaled down for Australian tastes – if you want the original, put in a whopping 60g of each).

In the flurry of nation-building gentrification, and homogenisation, that swept across Australia in the first half of the 20^th century, many of these non-English parts of Australia’s history were written out of the national story. Let’s cook them back in.

If your ancestors took an interesting route here, and picked up anything interesting like this recipe along the way, I’d love to hear from you.

Here is the original recipe:

BENGAL CHUTNEE. - The following is an Indian recipe for chutney, generally thought very good: - In this country apples must be substituted for the mangoes, and 2oz. of pounded ginger for the green ginger mentioned in the recipe: - 4lb. good moist sugar, 2lb. salt, 2lb. garlic, 2lb. green ginger, 2lb. mustard, 2lb. raisins stoned, 2lb dried chillies, four   bottles best vinegar, and sixty mangoes. The garlic, chillies, resins, &c., to be pounded together with the salt very fine; the sugar mixed with one bottle of vinegar and made into syrup. The mangoes, or apples, peeled, cut in slices, and boiled in the rest of the vinegar till soft. When cold, mix the whole well together, and bottle or put into pots.

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

 

Ingredients

For the seasoning paste:

10g (2 tsp.) salt

25g (2 tbsp.) garlic

25g (2 tbsp.) fresh ginger

25g (2 tbsp.) English mustard

60g (1/4 cup) raisins

2 dried chillies, or 2T (5 tsp.) chilli flakes (this makes a medium heat chutney – the original mouth scorching recipe calls for 60g).

 

For the syrup:

120g (1/2 cup) brown sugar

70ml (2 1/2oz) vinegar

 

For the mangoes:

210ml (7 1/2 oz) vinegar + a dash of water (if necessary to cover the mangoes)

4 mangoes, sliced into 1cm (1/2 an inch) wide strips

 

Cooking Time

1 hour (jolly quick for a preserve), including some cooling time in which you can occupy yourself by counting your socks, walking your granny’s dog, or helping to preserve the Cornish language.

 

Yield

Approximately 3 medium jars, depending on the size of your mangoes. Please note that I scaled this recipe down by 1/15^th, as the original recipe called for 60 mangoes and seemed to be geared towards making enough of the stuff to bathe in. As a consequence, it should scale back up quite well.

Method

Combine all the ingredients for the seasoning paste in a mortar and pestle or a food processor, and blend until only very small pieces of the raisins remain.

Put the brown sugar and vinegar in a non-reactive [hyperlink] pan, and heat very gently just until the sugar has dissolved. Stir it constantly. Once the sugar has dissolved, take the pan off the heat.

Place the mangoes in a non-reactive saucepan, along with the vinegar. If the vinegar is not even close to covering the mangoes, add a dash of water. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the mangoes are tender. Don’t be too gung ho with the stirring though, or you will make mango puree. When the mangoes are done, take the pan off the heat.

Once all the elements are cool (or, if you impatient like me, as cool as they’re going to get), mix them together.

You can start eating your chutney straight away, or you can leave it in the jar for a few weeks to calm down.

Chutney is ideal to serve with meat, on a sandwich, or with a strong cheese. You can also use it as a glaze for roast meat or vegetables – I have particularly fond memories of chutney-glazed baked ham.

Do let me know how you use yours!