Place of origin | Indian subcontinent |
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Region or state | Worldwide |
Main ingredients | Meat or vegetables, oil or ghee, spices |
Curry is a dish with a sauce or gravy seasoned with spices, mainly associated with South Asian cuisine.[1] It is not to be confused with leaves from the curry tree, although some curries do include curry leaves.[2][3] Curry is prepared in the native cuisines of many Southeast Asian and East Asian countries.[1][4]
There are many varieties of curry. The choice of spices for each dish in traditional cuisine depends on regional cultural traditions and personal preferences.[1] Such dishes have names that refer to their ingredients, spicing, and cooking methods.[5] Outside the Indian subcontinent, a curry is a dish from Southeast Asia which uses coconut milk or spice pastes and is commonly eaten over rice.[4] Curries may contain fish, meat, poultry, or shellfish, either alone or in combination with vegetables. Others are vegetarian. A masala mixture is a combination of dried or dry-roasted spices commonly homemade for some curries.[1]
Dry curries are cooked using small amounts of liquid, which is allowed to evaporate, leaving the other ingredients coated with the spice mixture. Wet curries contain significant amounts of sauce or gravy based on broth, coconut cream or coconut milk, dairy cream or yogurt, or legume purée, sautéed crushed onion, or tomato purée.[1] Curry powder, a commercially prepared mixture of spices marketed in the West, was first exported to Britain in the 18th century when Indian merchants sold a concoction of spices, similar to garam masala, to the British East India Company returning to Britain.[1]
No Indian, however, would have referred to his or her food as a curry. The idea of curry as a particular dish does not exist in India. Indians referred to their different dishes by specific names. But the British lumped all these together under the heading of curry