[Adam]

Inspired by Wilfrid, I have decided to cook from some of the cookbooks I have bought, read, but never used. One of these is:

'The People's Indian Cookery Book; New and Popular Culinary and Household Recipes' by Olivia C. Fitzgerald, 1900, Calcutta.

This is a book produced by and for the British in India. While it has typical 19th C. British dishes like 'Ox-tail soup, Roast Beef and Christmas cake', most of the recipes are what I would consider as being fairly authentic Indian (southern I am guessing) and also a few cross over dishes (I love the names of these in particular "Pish-Pash", "Ding-Ding", "Pepper-pot" and obviously "Country Captain".

I am quite interesting in the continuity of this style of dish in the British domain since the medieval period to the present time, so this is part of an on going project.

But reading is one thing and cooking is another. Tonight I made a Fish Curry. This was lots of onions cooked down in ghee to a golden colour, then ground spices added (tumeric, coriander seeds, chilies, cumin, garlic, ginger and peppercorns) along with water. This allows the onions to fall apart, until they water is reduced and the sauce frys again. Then the fish is added, along with a bay leaf and coconut milk. This is left until the fish is cooked through, then it is seasoned with lime juice (or it states to use tamarind if limes are not availible).

The result is a thick golden-brown sauce that is quite sweet from the onions, but balanced by the lime. Very nice.

[g.johnson]

Mongo!

Whitey's getting uppity again.

[Wilfrid1]

I remember when Chutney Mary, in London's Chelsea, used to serve an Anglo-Indian menu. Indian versions of stew and dumplings ("pot stickers"), and "pepper pot" rings a bell too.

Looks like it's now just an upscale Indian restaurant.

[mongo_jones]

i have rarely been as disappointed as i was when i first encountered mulligatawny soup. i was expecting something wonderfully anglo-exotic and got faux-rasam instead.

adam, i can think of at least one site where you might get a lot of interest and feedback--unfortunately it has been down all day due to a hosting provider switch that is taking far too long.

[The Scream]

Ummm... I kind of liked the pub meal I had with an Anglo-Indian curry served with mashed potatoes and something else. It was pretty good. But I had 3 guiness before that and 4 more after.

[Lippy]

I recently picked up Jennifer Brennan's Curries and Bugles, as much a social and cultural history as it as a cookbook, but I haven't cooked anything from it yet.

[flyfish]

The Scream, on Nov 8 2005, 05:25 PM, said:

It was pretty good. But I had 3 guiness before that and 4 more after.

Are you suggesting that your palate may have been compromised, or that your judgement was not as acute as it might have been -- or, horrors, both?

Fly

[rancho_gordo]

Lippy, on Nov 8 2005, 02:39 PM, said:

I recently picked up Jennifer Brennan's Curries and Bugles, as much a social and cultural history as it as a cookbook, but I haven't cooked anything from it yet.

I love that book! Try the tamarind shrimp. But then again, it's been years. I hope it's as good as I remember.

[Adam]

mongo_jones, on Nov 6 2005, 08:10 PM, said:

i have rarely been as disappointed as i was when i first encountered mulligatawny soup. i was expecting something wonderfully anglo-exotic and got faux-rasam instead.

adam, i can think of at least one site where you might get a lot of interest and feedback--unfortunately it has been down all day due to a hosting provider switch that is taking far too long.

Ah, that explains it.

I think that we are talking about slightly different things. This current book is most likely based on recipes cooked for Brit ex-pats by Indian cooks, in this regard the recipes are more 'true' to the source then many of the earlier Anglo-Indian that are printed in Britian.

You are unlikely to get recipes for drumsticks in UK based books (even now) for instance.

But as for the Mulligatawny, from this book;

Mulligatawny or Pepper-water

Take any of the following - cutlet of fowl, or chicken; half-seer of breast of mutton, or breast beef; or mutton or beef bones. Boil water ever it is, in two teacupfuls of water; and add ten cloves of sliced garlic, a small piece of sliced ginger, add a little salt. (If the pepper-water is of bones, strain the soup, and put in the garlic and ginger with the ground ingredients and throw away the bones). Next grind half-pice in weight of tumeric; broil and grind one pice weight of chilies, one and-a-half ditto of corinader seed; one pie each of cumin and mustard seed, and pepper; the milk of half a cocoa-nut (about a tea-cupful) salt, the juice of a lime (Tamarind juice may be substituted for the lime, but it must be put in along with the cocoa-nut milk). After boiling the flesh, put in all the ground currystuff, and the cocoa-nut milk, cover the chatty, let it boil for half an hour. In another vessel warm up half a dessertspoonful of ghee, slice up the onion or two, fry brown with a few curry leaves; now put in the pepper-water, keep the chatty covered for two minutes, and then take it off the fire. When serving add the lime juice.

Compare this with this Scottish Regency recipe of a hundred years earlier.

Mullagatawny or Curry Soup as made in India

Have ready powdered and sifted an ounce of coriander seeds, a third of an ounce of cassia, three drachms of black, two of cayenne pepper and a quarter of an ounce of China tumerick; mix them well. This quantity will do for two chickens, a large fowl, or three pounds of meat. Cut down meat into small pieces, and let boil slowly for an half and hour in two quarts of water; then put in for onions and three cloves of garlick shred and fried in two ounces of butter. Mix down the seasoning with a little broth and rice flour, strain them in a soup pan which must simmer until the soups smooth and thick as cream. When five minutes from being finished, add the juice of a lemon. Serve meat and soup in a tureen; boiled rice in a hot-water dish.

Not actually so different, which makes me think that the UK version may have been re-introduced back to India by returning Brits, hence the 1900 version is very similar to the 1829 version. If this is true I wonder what the Indian cooks of the time thought about it all?

[jinmyo]

The Scream, on Nov 8 2005, 04:25 PM, said:

Ummm... I kind of liked the pub meal I had with an Anglo-Indian curry served with mashed potatoes and something else. It was pretty good. But I had 3 guiness before that and 4 more after.

Fish curry and chips can be pretty fine stuff.

[Adam]

OK, here is what the curry looks like (if taken out of focus).

[Wilfrid1]

I must see if I have any currystuff in the larder.

[The Scream]

flyfish, on Nov 8 2005, 11:07 PM, said:

The Scream, on Nov 8 2005, 05:25 PM, said:

It was pretty good. But I had 3 guiness before that and 4 more after.

Are you suggesting that your palate may have been compromised, or that your judgement was not as acute as it might have been -- or, horrors, both?

Fly

Maybe it was the wet, cold weather that Los Angeleno Screamie was not used to. It probably affected my already damaged brain.

The pub meals were the most satisfying of my short dining adventures in London. It was really good stuff after a long, cold day of walking around.