The Glorious Gmish

I love curry. I love everything about curry - the tangy sauce, the fluffy rice and the sprinkle of sweet, salt and savory toppings. I would eat curry weekly if My Beloved didn't put the brakes on.

Recently, I had some leftover chicken, which always gets me thinking "Curry!" but I had neglected to restock my pantry with cream of chicken soup, my usual base for the sauce. (I learned to cook in the early '70s when most dishes began with a can of soup and have never found any reason to change this particular recipe, as it makes great curry.) I didn't feel like a return to the store and my taste buds were all set for curry so I decided to improvise.

Turns out curry sauce is dead simple to concoct. I sauteed a chopped onion in butter, then made a basic white sauce* in the same pan and added curry powder to taste. We like our curry deep yellow but not too spicy - different curry powders have different levels of heat so start with a little and keep tasting as you add more until you get the desired level of taste vs. spice. Add bite-size pieces of chicken, shrimp, lamb, beef - any meat you like - and vegetarians can use big beans, mushrooms or chunks of tofu in place of the meat.

We topped ours with raisins, peanuts, mango chutney, crumbled bacon, chopped hard boiled egg, sliced green onion and minced white onion. Other ideas are shredded coconut or fresh, finely ground coffee beans but, really, you can use anything that seems tasty and exotic to you. Just pile it all on, mix it all up and enjoy the glorious gmish!


*2 Tbs. butter, 2 Tbs. flour, 2 Cups milk. Melt the butter, cook the flour in it for a few minutes, then slowly add the milk as the sauce forms and thickens. Add more milk if needed until sauce reaches the desired consistency.