Spice Routes
african vanielje on Nov 19 2007 at 9:19 am | Filed under: chicken dishes, spices
When you grow up with stories of Dutch East India Spice routes and more than a little Malay kitchen influence, there is no way you can get away with not mixing your own spices. My mother used to get hers from a Durban spice merchant who bought direct from India. Her curries would be rich with ajmo, jeera, dhania, all exotic sounding names adding mystery to her curry creations.
My mother taught me to buy my spices whole and grind them myself if possible. She taught me to buy from a supplier who you knew had high turnover, so that the spices were still strong and potent. She taught me to dry fry or toast them to release their flavour and she taught me how to use that flavour alchemy to turn ordinary things, chicken, yoghurt, cucumber, potatoes, into golden adventures into foreign lands.
For me curries will always mean spicy, not hot, they mean coriander, garam masala, cardamom, methi and mustard seeds. They don’t meen lime leaves, lemongrass or chilli. They don’t mean alloo gobi or vindaloo. My curry roots are firmly planted, and have been lovingly nurtured in the Cape Malay tradition.
Kassie’s celebrated Cape Chicken Curry is a traditional Cape Curry. It includes tomatoes and hearty chunks of potato and is generally served with cardamom steamed basmati rice, a cucumber and yoghurt raita, spi
ced with fresh ground cumin, and a generous dollop of strong peach chutney, usually served in the distinctive blue and white china of the V.O.C.
Give a Capetonian a plate of curry and he wants to know where the fruit chutney is. This juxtaposition of sweet and savoury is another legacy of the indentured Malay workers who so influenced Cape cooking.
The unmistakable smells and tastes of my mother’s chicken curry take me right back to her kitchen, to huge pots of curry simmering on the stove and to rows or shelves, stacked with glass bottles, like an apothocary, ready to give up their magic.
For all my recipes go to the Vanielje Kitchen Cook Book or skip right to the Cape Chicken Curry page
I think I would like your curries…so many that I’ve had (or not) are based on heat and not flavor. I see no reason to suffer a burning mouth just for the sake of having it burning….
Got the new address
I will look forward to many more of your interesting and exciting recipes on your new site. Thanks for surmounting the problems and keeping us “posted”.
My spice roots are the opposite of yours … curry was something made with curry powder and to be avoided at all costs! It was only as an adult that I learned about the individual spices that could be combined in a myriad of different ways to produce hundreds of different flavours… I’m afraid though I still get them from the supermarket (hiding my head in shame!)
Best of luck with getting the site together!
First of all, I know how much work this must have taken to get your new site up and running. Brava!
I never told you that my first husband’s family was from India and my mother in law and his aunties taught me a lot of Indian cooking. My ex-mother-in-law had this book of old Indian recipes from South Africa and she taught me the differences in the names of spices and foods between Africa and India. Fascinating stuff. I still have some of those recipes and will post about them at some point.
xo, jeni
Well the vengeful blog sprit has gone! Site looks good. Im just getting into mixing my spices now. Great post.
Katie, there’s a new new address. Sorry. I’ve left a note on your site. Thanks for your dedication!
Valli, that’s so sweet thank you. I hope to be entertaining all my old visitors soon, as well as some new.
Kit, the supermarket have to get them from somewhere I suppose. The point is that you enjoy whatever you make. I’m not a great ‘hot’ fan myself. But I do like spicy, generally with a sweet chutney.
Ann, thank you so much. It’s just my blogroll and repairing links now.
Jeni, I’d love to read some of your curry recipes. It’s perfect Autumn food.
Mmmmm, this sounds like the kind of curry I like. In the UK, curry can be very one-dimensional (either too hot or too sweet for my taste) and I really miss the Cape Malay chicken curries. As you say, spicy, not painfully hot. The Cape Sun used to have delicious curries in the 1980s when we stayed there - and I’m sure they had a wealth of staff members who could tell them a thing or two about cooking them! Clearly I share your roots because I can’t eat curry without a fruit chutney (mmmm, mango!). And preferably some fruit IN the curry or the rice too! Like Kit, I get my spices from the supermarket, but I do try to crush and dry-fry them myself…
Courtney, the spirit has indeed wnadered on to greener pastures. Thank goodness. I love the fact that you’re having a go at mixing your own. It’s such fun.
Jeanne, I like lamb curry with dried apricots and I’m so glad our local sainsbury’s stocks Mrs Ball’s