Title page for the 1763 edition

Hannah Glasse’s enormously successful 1747 cookbook contained the first curry recipe to appear in an English cookbook. It didn’t make a notable splash in the moment, but 264 years later, curry is far and away the most popular dish on that flavor starved island, and the English and curry are inextricably linked. My copy of Glasse is a bit later (1763) but is mostly unchanged (later she added chiles – I took the liberty of slipping one red chile into the mortar):

To make a currey the Indian way:

…Take three large onions, chop them small and fry them in about two ounces of butter, then put in the chickens and fry them together until they are brown, take a quarter of an ounce of turmerick, a large spoonful of ginger and beaten pepper together, and a little salt to your palate; then pour in the liquor, and let them stew about half an hour, then put in a quarter of a pint of cream, and the juice of two lemons and serve it up. The ginger, pepper, and turmerick must be beat very fine.

I actually roasted a duck because I had a duck and duck curry is super, but the recipe doesn’t really depend on the meat that is used (the original 1747 recipe actually said rabbits or chicken). I also added one small, hot, chile and took the liberty of using galangal instead of ginger; there’s probably an argument to be made here for the authenticity of galangal. It’s delicious — the strength of the tumerick is a little overpowering at first, but your palate adjusts and the other flavors come through.

The picture below with the cream added is a little noxious looking — I don’t remember that troubling shade of green in real life: