Do not attempt to make curry in a hurry.
2 hours is the least in which you can make a vegetable curry worthy of the name, and it is far wiser to allow 3 or 4 hours.
Do not ask your cook to make curry on a day when she is very busy with other matters, for it will take an hour or more of undivided attention as well as a certain amount of attention throughout the time of cooking.
There is, however, no reason that curry should not be made the day before it is wanted, for it improves by keeping, and by being reheated.
A Delicious Vegetable Curry
Weigh 5 oz. of butter (or if economy must be studied, 3 oz. of clarified dripping, and 2 oz. of butter). Choose four medium-sized onions, and chop them very fine. Melt the butter in a stewpan and add the onions and cook them until they are of a deep golden brown, stirring often. Meanwhile, put 1 tablespoonful of curry powder in a saucer in the oven for 10 minutes, then mix it to a smooth paste with a little cream, or if this cannot be allowed, some milk, and add it to the onion mixture, and stir well. Cook slowly, stirring frequently for 2 hours in all. During this time the onions will become quite pulpy, and the butter like oil, and the colour of the mixture will slowly deepen to a rich mustard yellow. While this “ghee,” as it is called, is cooking, take 1 small vegetable marrow, cut in squares; ½ lb. of French beans, strung and broken in half; 2 large tomatoes, quartered; ½ a small cucumber, peeled and sliced; 1 small apple, peeled and cored and sliced; ½ a small carrot, sliced. Boil the vegetables as usual, cooking the larger and firmer longer than those of a more delicate kind. Make the curry mixture given above, and add the vegetables during the last ½ hour of cooking. Serve with a border of rice.
This recipe does not make a sloppy curry, but one in which the solid ingredients are coated with the thick sauce.
Other dishes, not properly curries though flavoured with curry powder, are often termed curry. They provide a quick and easy method of serving various materials. For these a curry sauce is needed.
Curry Sauce
Chop an onion and a few slices of apple finely and fry them in 2 oz. of clarified dripping or butter. Stir in ½ a dessertspoonful of curry powder and the same of flour. Salt to taste. Add ¼ pint of stock or milk, cook gently for 30 minutes, then put all through a sieve, add a few drops of lemon juice, and reheat.