CURRY. 200 years before the Portuguese had appeared in the Indian seas, Ibn Batuta describes the natives of Ceylon as eating curry, which lie calls in Arabic Conehan ; in modern Arabic, Idaan is the name. In the Rajavali, also, this article of diet is mentioned as in use in. Ceylon in the 2d century of this era. Nevertheless, several writers have suggested that the word has been introduced from the Portuguese. The name is probably from the Tamil word Kadai or Karai, a bazar; and Tamil children in the Peninsula, sing a nursery song : Kai viss ammah kai viss, Kadi ki polam kai viss.' 'Swing your hand, mother, swing your hand; Let us go to the market, swing your hand.' Curry in Urdu is called Salin, in Tamil Karri, in Telugu Koora, in Persian Nan-khurish. Curry is daily used in every family on the Indian sea coast, wherever the Bengali, the Tamil, Telugu, and Mahratta people have spread, .and in greater or less quantity according to the means of the family, always with vegetables and with mutton or fowl, as they can afford. The ingredients are usually brought fresh from the market daily, but Euro peans in India often grind aud keep the dry materials in powder. There are very numerous re ceipts, but almost every household has one of its own, and up to the middle of the 19th century many houses prided theinselvesi on their curries. The curry powders of India are articles of considerable commercial traffic ; 32,550 cwt. of curry stuff was hnported into Ceylon, chiefly from India', in 1851. Theusu'al ingredients for eurrystUffg : aniseed, allspice, cardamona, cloves, mace nutmeg, cinna mon, coriander, cumin seed, black' pepper, mustard seed, chillies, turmeric, fenugreek, garlic, onions, ginger dry and green, poppy seed, long pepper, asafoetida, chironjie nut, turmeric, almond, cocoa nut, ghi, butter, salt, tamarind, lime-juiee, mango.
Cocoanut milk is much used on the coast in forming the gravy to many curries, especially fish and prawns, as well as the oil fresh ex pressed from the nnt when grated. If the curry is to be dry, the onions must be fried brown in ghi or butter, and the ingredients ground to a paste with water mixed in the same, the meat and fowl added, stirring the whole until the gravy and butter are absorbed. For a gravy curry, cut the meat or fowl into slices, put the ghi into a stew pan over the fire with the sliced onions, and dress them ; then add the meat with the ground ingre dients and some water or broth ; mix well together, and let the whole simmer-gently until the meat is properly done. Chundu is made with meat or fowl that has been previously dressed. It is to be minced up and. added to chopped onions fried in ghi, with whole red chillies, and the other curry ingredients well mixed together ; the frying is continued until the meat is perfectly brown and the gravy quite absorbed. Dr. Riddell gives tho following ingredients for four curry powder rmeipts Salt in proportion to be added when using the curry stuff. The whole to be cleaned, dried, pounded, and sifted ; then properly mixed to gether, and put into bottles, well corked. A table-spoonful is sufficient for chicken or fowl curry. Another very simple receipt is powdered turmeric, 22 tea-spoonfnls ; red dried chillies or cayenne pepper, 8 tea-spoonfuls ; coriander seed, cumin seed, dried cassia leaves (tejpat), each 12 tea-spoonfuls, and mix together.—Riddell's Domestic Economy, p. 404 ; Sinanonds' COM. Pl'Od.