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Currying flavour everywhere

Curry leaf is an indispensable part of the Indian kitchen

Incredible leaf

Curry leaf is indispensable to south Indian cuisine and is native to the Indian subcontinent. Indians emigrating to other lands carried the tree to all continents of the world.

The earliest mention of the leaf is from Tamil writings dating back to the 1st century AD. The cuisine of the Tamil people makes the most extensive use of curry leaf. The rest of India has learnt how to use this leaf from the Tamil people. In fact, even the Hindi word for curry leaf is derived from a Tamil word, kari, which means a spicy sauce. The botanical name Murraya koenigii derives from two 18th-century botanists: the Swede Johann Andreas Murray and the German Johann Gerhard König.

Curry leaves flavour curry, chutneys, dal and sambhar, pickles, soups, meat, fried foods and even buttermilk preparations. The leaves are used fresh, and the aroma of the fresh leaves spluttering in hot oil fills every south Indian household at least twice a day. Sambhar and dal are impossible without curry leaves in the spluttering mix of spices. In Sri Lanka, the leaf flavours the island's burning-hot beef and chicken curries. The dried and powdered leaves, when lightly toasted, are used in spicy leaf powders.

Curry powder, a British invention, is actually a mixture of different spice powders and has very little to do with the curry leaf. Just to make the confusion worse, the curry tree is not the same as the curry plant. The latter is a European herb.

100 gm of fresh curry leaves contain around 110 Calorie. Clearly no one eats the leaves for their calorific value. Curry leaves are among the richest sources of micronutrients, antioxidants, and carotene. In fact, the carotene content of curry leaf is so high that one State government in south Indian recently ordered the inclusion of curry leaf powder in the midday meal provided to children in anganwadies. Curry leave are used in ayurvedic medicine as a digestive. They are also used to increase the appetite of convalescents. Curry leaf mixed with limejuice is a folk remedy for morning sickness.

RAJIV. M

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