Chicken curry

Indian subcontinent

Indian cuisine has a large amount of regional variation, with many variations on the basic chicken curry recipe. Indian chicken curry typically starts with whole spices, heated in oil. A sauce is then made with onions, ginger, garlic, and tomatoes, and powdered spices. Bone-in pieces of chicken are then added to the sauce, and simmered until cooked through. In South India, coconut and curry leaves are also popular ingredients. Chicken curry is usually garnished with coriander leaves, and served with rice or roti. Even within the country, there are variations among regions. In Northern India, where the delicacy may be cooked with extra spice. Additionally, one can find the dish in several small shops as well as five-star restaurants. Depending on the style of preparation, some versions may be sweeter while others will have a creamier taste to them due to the ample use of butter and cashew nut paste.

In South India, chicken curry may be thickened using coconut milk.

Trinidad and Tobago

This dish was introduced to Trinidad and Tobago by indentured Indian workers. At that time, the dish was very similar to the chicken curry dish of India, consisting mostly of sauce with few chicken pieces. However, poultry in Trinidad and Tobago was so readily available, the dish began consisting of mainly chicken, flavored with curry spices. As Trinidadians continued to find their own identity in the world, new curry chicken type dishes began forming. Curry goat and curry duck have become widely popular. Curry chicken and its derivatives are also popular in Suriname, Guyana, Jamaica, Barbados, Grenada, and other Caribbean territories with Indian and South Asian influence.

South East Asia

In Southeast Asia where coconuts, coconut milk extraction, and various spices originated, various native dishes made with coconut milk or flavor pastes and eaten with rice are often referred to as "curry" in English, even though they did not originate from India. Examples of these include Thai gaeng gai and Filipino ginataang manok.

However there are true derivatives of the Indian chicken curry, which are usually distinguished because they are relatively modern and are made with curry powder, curry tree leaves, or other Indian spices, like the Filipino chicken curry and the Malaysian chicken curry, although they still use ingredients native to Southeast Asia.

North America

Country captain chicken is a stewed chicken dish flavored with curry powder, popular in parts of the Southern United States. The Hobson-Jobson Dictionary states the following:

COUNTRY-CAPTAIN. This is in Bengal the name of a peculiar dry kind of curry, often served as a breakfast dish. We can only conjecture that it was a favourite dish at the table of the skippers of ‘country ships,’ who were themselves called ‘country captains,’ as in our first quotation. In Madras the term is applied to a spatchcock dressed with onions and curry stuff, which is probably the original form.

1792.—"But now, Sir, a Country Captain is not to be known from an ordinary man, or a Christian, by any certain mark whatever." —Madras Courier, April 26.

c. 1825.—"The local name for their business was the 'Country Trade,' the ships were 'Country Ships,' and the masters of them 'Country Captains.' Some of my readers may recall a dish which was often placed before us when dining on board these vessels at Whampoa, viz. ‘Country Captain.'"—The Fankwae at Canton (1882), p. 33.

This dish dates back to the early 1800s. A British sea captain stationed in Bengal, India, shared the recipe for this dish with some friends at the major shipping port in Savannah, Georgia.

In 1940, Mrs. W.L. Bullard from Warm Springs, Georgia served this dish under the name Country Captain to Franklin D. Roosevelt (the 32nd president of the United States of America) and to General George S. Patton (a distinguished U.S. Army General). Their warm praise and keen liking and love of this dish were factors in reforging the Southern United States classic status. Roosevelt was so fond of Warm Springs, Georgia, that he built his only self-owned home in Warm Springs. It was a medium-sized, six room cottage, that he liked to call "The Little White House".