A UK madras curry ~

hellsbellsbaby

what is the equivalent in India ?

I have had a good look at lots of diffrent menus from Delhi & Mumbai on the internet but I have yet to come across a Madras .
There lots of familiar dishes , with slightly different spelling , but nonetheless I knew them...but what am I looking for when I get there when I fancy a Madras or something similar ?

Just think in 3 weeks I'll be stuffing my face silly , what a mouth watering thought

Nick-H

well, for a start, I don't think you'll find it in Madras!

Our Southern Indian cooking is nothing like the very rich "Indian-restaurant" food that I ate in UK.

Well, it is available: you can get chicken tikka massala here, which I understand to have been invented in Bradford or Birmingham, but it is not the trad food of the region.

hellsbellsbaby

I did wonder if it was another Indian dish the British had invented , like the onion bahji .

Admittidly I doubt it'll cross my mind when I'm faced with tons of new exciting dishes to try .
Thought though that may be an equivalent....but that's okay .

Nick-H

I can tell you where to get Madras food in UK

London Gujju

I think in the UK word MADRAS is used by Bangldeshi(Indian) restaurants and generally it reprsents the LEVEL of spices...in the chilli chart it seats just below Vindaloo!! It is the usual
curry but vry hot..!

machadinha

... Moreover, there doesn't really exist anything called a "curry" dish in India; it's just another British generic term for generally an Indian spicy stew-type dish.

Theories as to the origins of the term are legion (and you will, of course, find restaurant menus advertizing "curries"); but anyway it might further complicate your search for a "Madras curry" (I think it is generally used to mean quite spicy where I live, too, so in NL; often referring to seafood I think, e.g., prawns Madras or something. Funny really, as I don't think I would generally consider Tamil food to be exceptionally hot. Maybe the colonials of yore had it served to them that way, or something. Or maybe it was just a name that rang some exotic bells to some.)

__________________
Reading tips, all picked up at IndiaMike : INDAX's A Comprehensive Guide To India / Dinoj Surendran's Desi Humor / ITHVC on Culture Shock & Travel Health / JetLag Travel Guides For the Undiscerning Traveller / India Travel Links

Nick-H

It may have something to do with curry leaves! Which would be odd, because, although they have a peppery flavour, they are not hot, and it is chilly that has become the archetypal "curry" ingredient.

Tamil food can be hot. My Sri Lankan friends in London use a ridiculous amount of chilly in everything! In Tamil Nadu, Chettinad food has a reputation for being very hot. I don't know, because my wife will never let me try it; she just assures me that I'm not going to be able to cope with it! Of course, like every child, I have to find out for myself one day

machadinha

Yes, we've been here before; but the name "curry" leaf is itself derived from a local word, of course Whether the two are related seems unclear. (Wikipedia in its usual garbled way suggests it is known locally as "black neem leaf," owing to some resemblance of the leaves to those of the neem tree; with kari or karu then meaning black in several South Indian languages. Although they then turn it around again to suggest that name was actually derived from the word for curry...)

Another plausible theory is that there used to exist a Gujarati dish called "karhi"; yet another attractive one proposed on this board was that it's actually derived from some old British dialect term for a stew, that would have then been introduced by early sailors to there, who saw some resemblance to their daily fare on board.

You're right btw, Sri Lankan food is said to get possibly maddeningly hot; in Tamil Nadu, the standard fare at least I don't remember to be overly so. But, like you say, there must surely exist exceptions to prove the rule.

Nick-H

I thought the discussion looked familiar

machadinha

Heheh. Hey, it beats cows

Nick-H

Nothing beats cows.

Cows are trumps.

machadinha

Heheh. Mooh?!

btw Both Wikipedia and the famous Hobson-Jobson seem to be fairly consistent in their much less fanciful explanations. But then who knows really. Respectively:

If all that is true, maybe it does bring us back to the origins of anything like a "Madras curry." Who knows indeed...

hellsbellsbaby

okay I get the picture...but how will I know when ordering my meal , the level of spiceness ?

Are there certain ones to watch out for or am I best just ordering what takes my fancy....all of it from reading the menus , especially Lal Maas , that sounds divine .

I just thought , won't you all be glad when I finally take my trip and stop with all the questions . I know as soon as I step off that plane that everything I've ever asked will be forgotten .

machadinha

LOL, it will be (and then you'll have a whole head full of new questions). That's OK though, we've all been there

You can always try to specify you want your food spicy, or not so. Keep in mind what may be considered not spicy may well be plenty so for you, though.

(I think it's a misconception to think all Indian food has to be crazy hot though. Ideally, it really shouldn't be; artfully tangy or pungent rather. Then again I've certainly ran into visitors there who just couldn't handle any of it. Must be a difficult position to be in. They'd get by on lots of chapatis and naans and such though, perhaps with some side dishes they'd learned were milder.)

hellsbellsbaby

thankfully I adore spiced food and have spent way too many holidays in Thailand enjoying it . I know the british 'curry' isn't like anything I'm about to try , but so long as my tastebuds tingle and my mouth waters then it's all good .