Chicken Curry and Beyond - The CurryFocus Blog

Hi, Ray here again.

Time to try out another delicious curry recipe from the Curry Focus website. I had been given two large eggplants so it was an easy decision to cook an eggplant dish. There is a very easy recipe for Eggplant Curry on the website.

I already had everything in the kitchen for the curry, not difficult seeing that there are relatively few ingredients.

It was really a very easy curry to make.

First, I cut up and soaked the eggplants in a very large bowl.

I prepared everything else whilst the eggplant was soaking and there was even time to sit down and enjoy a relaxing cup of coffee and read of the paper (cooking does not have to be hard work).

Then the cooking actually started.

I heated up the oil and fried all of the spices before adding the eggplant and tomatoes.

I added the lemon juice after 5 minutes and reduced the heat to simmer the curry for 10 minutes.

I had earlier decided to make some naan bread to go with the curry.

Earlier in the day I had prepared the dough and experimented with cooking the naan. I had already preheated the oven for when the simmering of the eggplant started and I cooked the naan bread whilst the eggplant was simmering.

It was all ready at the same time and I served up the eggplant with a side of the naan bread.

The eggplant curry was a hit. It was a spicy medium to hot and scored a respectable rating of 7.5 out of 10 from the dinner tasters.

As well as being easy to cook, it’s a healthy curry that I shall definitely be making again.

In 1526, the Mughal emperor, Babur, invaded Hindustan. Babur was born in what is now known as Uzbekistan and he pushed through Afghanistan to reach Hindustan, which is the former name of northern India.

The cuisine from Babur’s homeland was heavily influenced by the culinary styles of Persia and, to some extent, Turkey.

The pulao (or pilau) dish was introduced in the time of Babur and was essentially meat (often mutton) fried in fat with water, rice and vegetables added. The Mughals liked to eat meat, such as beef and mutton, whereas most of the population of Hindustan were vegetarians. There are lots of variations of vegetarian pulao/pilau recipes that you can try. There’s a very easy Curry Focus recipe for Pulao Rice here and there’s a Vegetable Pulao recipe here.

During the rule of Babur’s son, Humuyan, the pulao/pilau dish became even more popular and evolved into containing fruit and chicken, not just spices.

The third emperor was Akbar and the pulao/pilau dish evolved even further into a completely new dish, biryani. Biryani is similar to pulao/pilau but usually contains meat that has been marinated in yogurt and is more than likely to contain onions, garlic, almonds, saffron and rice as well as a wide variety of spices. You can see a recipe for Chicken Biryani here and for a Lamb Biryani here.

The Mughals built the most famous building in the world. Akbar’s grandson, Shahjahan, was responsible for creating the Taj Mahal, in Agra.

The Taj Mahal is a great Mughal gift to the world.

And there’s no denying that the pulao/plau and biryani dishes are also great Mughal gifts to the world.

March has been a great month for the CurryFocus.com website with our traffic increasing 22% on the previous month. We have added more great articles and below are the latest.

World Rice Shortage Worsens
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…..Read More

What Is Garlic?

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 …. Read More

What Is Sambal?

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….. Read More

Top 5 Recipes for March

1 Easy Chicken Curry
2 Chicken Curry
3 Balti Chicken
4 Chicken Curry (Kodi Kura)
5 Beef and Onion Curry

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