Curry powder recipes and dishes were popular in 1800s cookbooks. Prepared curry powder could be purchased, but making it yourself was considered superior. However, ingredients  were often hard to find at the grocer’s or too expensive.

INFORMATION BELOW FROM 1800s COOKBOOKS

CURRIES UNDER VARIOUS NAMES

Curries can be made from anything. The ingredients indispensable to all curries is a very pungent powder called turmeric, which has a peculiar flavor of its own.  In India there is always something acid in the mixture, as lemons, sour apple juice, or green tamarinds. Finely grated cocoa-nut is a pleasant improvement to curried dishes, and is universally liked.

The curry powder you buy is frequently much adulterated with inferior articles. The best curry powder imported from India is of a dark green color, and not yellow or red. Curry powder may be added to any stew of meat, poultry, or game. Boiled rice must always accompany a dish of curry.

Some curries are hot, some dry, some juicy, some sour, and so on. Some cooks add too much ghee or butter, lard, etc., but it only spoils the taste of the curry. And some cooks put too much spice and give it too much flavoring. Reasonable ingredients couldn’t spoil a curry.

CURRY POWDER
Pound in a marble mortar three ounces turmeric, three ounces coriander seed, one-fourth ounce cayenne, one ounce mustard, one ounce cardamoms, one-half ounce cumin seed, and one-half ounce mace. Let all these ingredients be thoroughly mixed in the mortar and then sift it through a fine sieve. Dry it for an hour before the fire and put it into clean bottles, securing the corks well. Use from two to three tablespoons at a time in proportion to the size of the dish you intend to curry.

CURRY POWDER ~ ANOTHER
Take one ounce each of ginger, mustard, and pepper, three ounces each coriander seed and turmeric, one-half ounce cardamoms, and one-fourth ounce each cayenne pepper, cinnamon, and cumin seed. Pound all these ingredients very fine in a mortar, sift them, and cork tight in a bottle.

CURRY SAUCE
Stir a small quantity of curry powder in some gravy, melted butter, or onion sauce. This must be done by degrees, according to the taste, taking care not to put in too much of the curry powder.

INDIAN CURRY OF VEGETABLES.
Take equal quantities of raw cauliflower and potatoes, the cauliflower cut into flowerets and the potatoes into dice. Put them into a spider* with a tablespoon of butter and a teaspoon of curry powder, and let them simmer for a few minutes without taking color. Then add two tablespoons of tomatoes, one teaspoon of grated onion and one of chopped green pepper. Fill up the spider with boiling water and set it back on the stove, covered, where it will stew gently until the vegetables are tender and the water has been reduced to one-third the quantity. It should be as thick as ordinary gravy. If not, add a teaspoon of flour. Just before it is done, stir in a heaping tablespoon of butter. Pour it into a shallow vegetable dish and serve very hot. This may be warmed over and is better the second day than the first.

*spider – a skillet with a flat bottom, straight shallow sides, a short handle and three legs. It was high enough to stand above hot coals pulled out from the fire.

MUSHROOMS CURRIED AND SERVED ON TOAST
Pick out half-pound of fresh and good mushrooms; sprinkle with little pepper and salt. Now prepare a curry sauce. Fry the mushrooms in a dessertspoon* of butter, and add to the curry sauce. Let it simmer gently for five minutes then serve on hot toast. A nice dish for lunch or supper.

*dessertspoon – two teaspoons.

CURRY VINEGAR
Put into a pint of good cider or wine vinegar a tablespoon of curry powder, shake it well from time to time, and in ten days it will be fit for use. It is excellent for flavoring soups, etc.

CURRIED APPLES
Apples thus prepared are more toothsome than the ordinary spiced apples. Peel and core six large apples. Mix together half a pound of butter, half a pound of brown sugar, a tablespoon of vinegar and a teaspoon of curry powder. Fill the holes with the mixture, put them in a buttered tin, and bake. When cold, serve with cold meats.

Crab apples boiled in sugar and flavored with curry form an agreeable relish for cold game.

FISH CURRY
Slice up six onions fine and fry them with a little butter or grease over a slow fire until they become very lightly colored. Then add three or four green apples in slices and when these are dissolved, place your pieces of any kind of fish, which you have previously fried in a frying-pan, on the top of the onions, etc., Sprinkle a spoonful of curry powder all over the fish, put the lid on the saucepan, and set the whole on the hob* of a moderate fire, or in the oven if you have one, to remain simmering for about half an hour. The curry will then be ready to be eaten with well-boiled rice.

*hob – a flat metal shelf at the side or back of a fireplace used especially for heating pans.

CURRY BALLS
Take a sufficiency of finely-grated bread-crumbs. the hard-boiled yolk of egg, grated, some fresh butter, and a little curry powder. Pound the whole in a mortar, moistening it with raw yolk of egg (well-beaten) as you proceed. Make it into small balls and add them to stewed chicken or rabbit, about five minutes before you take it up.

CURRY OF COD
This should be made of sliced cod, that has been sprinkled with salt for a day to make it firm. Fry it of a fine brown with onions. Stew it with a good white gravy, a little curry powder, a bit of butter and flour, three or four spoons of rich cream, a little salt, and cayenne if the powder be not hot enough.

CURRY SOUP
Cut four pounds of a breast of veal into small pieces, put the trimmings into a stewpan with two quarts of water, twelve peppercorns, and the same of allspice. When it boils, skim it clean, and after boiling an hour and a half, strain it off. While it is boiling, fry the bits of veal in butter, with four onions. When they are done, add the broth to them, and put it on the fire. Let it simmer half an hour, then mix two teaspoons of curry powder and the same of flour, with a little cold water and a teaspoon of salt, and add these to the soup. Simmer it gently till the veal is quite tender. Or bone a couple of fowls or rabbits, and stew them in the same manner. Instead of black pepper and allspice, a bruised shallot may be added, with some mace and ginger.

CURRIED SARDINE SANDWICHES
Remove the heads, tails and bones from one large box of sardines. Rub them to a paste, add a tablespoon of melted butter, a half teaspoon of curry powder and a saltspoon* of salt. Spread this mixture between slices of buttered bread, press the two together, trim the crusts and cut into shape.

*saltspoon – a miniature spoon used with an open salt cellar for individual use before table salt was free-flowing. One saltspoon equals one-fourth teaspoon.

CURRIED CHICKEN SANDWICHES
Chop sufficient cold boiled chicken to make a half pint. Rub together one tablespoon of butter and one of flour. Add a half cup of cold milk and stir over hot water until you have a smooth, thick paste. Add the chicken gradually to this, mashing and rubbing all the while. Add a level teaspoon of curry powder, a half teaspoon of salt, a teaspoon of onion juice and a teaspoon of lemon juice. When cold, spread between layers of buttered bread, trim the crusts and cut into shapes.

Almost any bits of left-over meat may be substituted for the chicken and made into sandwiches of this kind.

Image from Deposit Photos

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