Chicken Curry and Beyond - The CurryFocus Blog

Following on from our recent blog on the world rice shortage, this weekend’s news from Vietnam confirms that the problem has got worse.

Vietnam is the usually 5th largest producer of rice, and the 3rd largest exporter, of rice in the world.

But this has changed with pests and disease ruining the rice crops both last year and this.

And there doesn’t seem to be an immediate resolution to the problem.

The rice-dependent part of the world is suffering from shortage and crop failures, and is anxiously waiting to see if the rice pests and diseases spread from Vietnam into other major rice producing countries (such China, Cambodia and Thailand).

You can read a good article on Vietnam’s current rice crop problems on Yahoo.

Because of the crop problems, Vietnam has placed restrictions on rice exports to try and ensure that the local population has access to the most important staple food.

Vietnam joins a list of countries (India, China and Egypt) that has banned, or heavily restricted, rice exports in order that their own people can eat. Despite the export restrictions, the price of rice is rising in those countries.

What this mean for you and me? Well, higher prices for rice are inevitable as countries that buy rice compete against each other for the shrinking. And there may be shortages in your local supermarket as well, although it is too early to see if this actually happens.

My local supermarket does not seem to have noticed any problems in the rice market because my favourite basmati rice was on sale this weekend with 30% off the regular price. But, as the world’s rice supplies do dry up, the prices WILL rise.

At the end of the day, you and I can afford to pay more for our rice. But the masses in South East Asia face the big problem of finding affordable food for themselves.

Garlic is part of the onion family of plants and, like onions, is a key ingredient in many curry recipes.

Garlic has a pungent spicy flavor that mellows in cooking.

The main part of the garlic plant is the bulb that has lots of small segments that are called cloves. Curry recipes that use garlic (and most of them do) tell you how many cloves of garlic to use. You take this number of cloves off the main bulb, peel away the thin tissue-like covering and you are left with the raw garlic. You can either finely chop or crush the garlic to use in the recipe (there’s a special kitchen utensil, called a garlic crusher, that you use to crush garlic – the utensil looks a bit like a nut crusher). Most times you can chop up the garlic really finely if you don’t have a garlic crusher.

Often you will be putting garlic into a curry at the same time as you are cooking the onions or ginger. The three ingredients go together well.

And as well as being great in cooking, garlic also has a lot of medicinal applications.

Garlic has been used to treat a wide variety of ailments such as high cholesterol, hypertension, cancer, blood sugar problems, the common cold and AIDS. You can search the internet if you want to find out more details.

Garlic is reasonably easy to grow and is readily available all around the world with China and India being the main producers.

No curry-friendly kitchen should be without a bulb of garlic.

Hi, Ray here again.

Well it’s time to make another delicious curry from the recipes on the Curry Focus website. This time I chose the recipe for Lamb with Spinach (Saag Gosht).

As usual, this is a very simple recipe to follow and more time was spent on getting the ingredients ready than in standing in the kitchen and actually cooking the curry.

I bought some very lean lamb and only had to trim off a few pieces of fat.

The big bag of spinach boiled down to just a small pile of spinach – it always amazes me how much spinach shrinks when it is cooked.

The food processor made a good job of making a puree of the main ingredients.

After the lamb was browned, I stir-fried the bay leaves, cardamoms, cloves and cinnamon.

Then the onion puree went into the frying pan to be followed, 5 minutes later, by the main ingredients of the lamb and spinach, and some water.

Then it was just a matter of simmering the curry for 90 minutes, with the occasional stir.

The rice went into the microwave 15 minutes before the curry was ready and a couple of stuffed paratha (bought from my local Indian store) were microwaved after the rice was cooked.

Finally, the yogurt was added and the meal was served up to the dinner guests.

This is really a stunning dish. The spices are mild and add a lovely delicate flavor to the curry. The curry is tasty and mild. It is very tasty and was eaten pretty quickly.

Lots of positive comments were made about the curry and got an excellent rating of 7.5 out of 10, with a mild spicy heat rating.

Now it’s time for a confession. I made the exact same meal last week except I forgot to put in the yogurt. This was a huge mistake. The curry was only adequate and everyone knew that there was something had gone wrong. It wasn’t until I was loading up the dishwasher that I realised what I had done. So last week was a runny, slightly spicy stew and this week was beautiful – better than I’ve eaten in lots of curry houses.

Why not try out this delicious recipe for yourself? You won’t regret it, as long as you put in all of the key ingredients.

Sambal is a spicy relish that is often served as a side dish to a meal.

Sambal features a lot in Indonesian and Malaysian cuisine.

One of the simplest sambals is made from chillies and salt but more elaborate sambals can contain onion, garlic, lemongrass, vinegar, lime juice, sugar, fruit and nuts.

You use the sambal as a relish and usually you spread the sambal on meat that you want livened up with a bit of spicy heat, much like you use ketchup

There’s a recipe for a delicious Tamarind Sambal on the Curry Focus website that you can try out.

There are lots of different types of sambal that you can buy from your local Asian store, if you don’t want to make one yourself.

But we think it’s much more fun to make your own sambal. Why not make one soon?

February, although a short month, has been our busiest to date in terms of visitors to our site and we have added more articles and recipes throughout the month.

Onions and Curry. A Culinary Blend

Making a curry without onion is almost unthinkable. Nearly every curry starts with cooking onions. Some curries have a lot of onions and some have only a small amount of onions. But the onions are always there….Read More

What Is Paprika?

Traditionally, paprika is made from red bell peppers. The peppers are allowed to dry and then the stalks and the inside veins are discarded. The pepper fruit and seeds are separated from each other and separately ground into powder. This process is done for different types of bell pepper and the resultant powders are blended to produce the required taste…. Read More

What Is Tamarind?

The tamarind tree is a tropical tree that originated in east Africa. The main growing place is now India but the tamarind tree is grown in such diverse tropical locations as the Caribbean, Mexico, northern Brasil, Hawaii and Florida…. Read More

Top 5 Recipes for February

It never ceases to amaze us here at Curry Focus how often chicken appears in our top five recipes and this month every one of the top four is a chicken related dish.

1 Chicken Curry
2 Chicken Curry (Kodi Kura)
3 Easy Chicken Curry
4 Balti Chicken
5 Chickpea and Spinach Curry

Why not tell us the recipes that you like? You can submit a new recipe here and a restaurant here.

You might have seen headlines about the shortage of rice, and wheat, and the prices rises that have followed this.

The Independent Bangladesh has a good article and you can read it here.

Lots of different factors are making the shortage worse than it could be.

Firstly, Thailand farmers and millers are holding back rice stocks waiting for the prices to go even higher.

Next, China and India have banned rice exports (except to a few specific countries) so that the crop is available to their own populations.

Prices have recently soared in Pakistan by 60% and in Singapore by between 30% and 40%.

Some of the rice price rises have been caused by concern over the low wheat yields that are expected in India and about worries with next Vietnam rice harvest.

Amongst the causes of the shortages is land being converted to produce biofuel instead of food.

The South Wales Echo has picked up on the link between rising rice prices and the cost of a curry at your favorite curry restaurant. Check out the full story here.

The Rice Association has also pointed out that the price of basmati rice has recently doubled.

The rice shortage, and rise in curry prices, has also been reported by the UK Metro newspaper. You can see the full story here.

Will these price increases stop you and me from eating our favorite meals? I doubt it. You’ve got to keep all of this in perspective – you can still buy a 32 oz bag of basmati rice for less than a six-pack of beer. A bargain.