Elawin
Legendary Member
This is a good basic recipe for curry powder, although unless you are going to use a lot of it you may want to use teaspoons rather than ounces! If you like it hotter, add some crushed dried chilli to it.
That's very interesting. I have a few old cookery books and most of them suggest using ready-made curry powder which was readily available in Victorian times. What is the book? The heat here is coming from mustard (Don't know if this is mustard powder or seeds) and pepper (I'm presuming whole white peppercorns but that's a guess!). I often use black peppercorns ground into curry pastes as my daughter doesn't like chilli. Even if using chilli, pepper adds another dimension of heat.
Elawin
Legendary Member
I got the recipe from the History of Royal Food and Feasting MOOC in their section on Victorian food, but the recipe actually comes from The New England Cookbook 1836. You can find it here https://openlibrary.org/books/OL7137355M/The_New_England_cook_book_or_Young_housekeeper's_guide
I saved a copy as a PDF - best to right click and save target, otherwise it takes a donkey's age to be able to read it
. I used mustard seeds as I had a jar in my spice drawer, but it might be hotter if you use Colman's mustard powder. I also made the recipe as is - it's a huge quantity, far too much for a 1 lb jar - and it keeps pretty well, although I have curry quite often. I've used it in the kedgeree recipe I mentioned elsewhere, as well as for chicken curries and vegetable curries, all of which required other spices as well.