Curries and Longcooked Dishes

‘Curry’ in the West has become a catch-all term, often applied to vaguely Asian dishes that are not true curries at all. Even in Asia, the word is used rather loosely, but no one doubts that one of its true meanings is‘a stew with sauce This is certainly how I interpret curry in these recipes: a stew or a long-cooked dish, with a delicious and harmonious combination of spices that produce a good rich, tasty sauce. There are variations on the curry theme in this book, drawn from different Southeast Asian countries, where cattle and poultry are free-range to the point of becoming lean, muscular and pretty tough. The spices and the long cooking have a practical purpose: to tenderize the meat and penetrate it with flavour. Fish and seafood, by contrast, can be quickly ruined by overcooking, which accounts for my repeated suggestions that this should be avoided.