Updated April 15, 2024
One of the yummiest days, National Curried Chicken Day or National Chicken Curry Day, is on January 12. This fantastic dish has been filling our bellies in the Western world since the 1800s and has been in existence long before then. We have India to thank for providing us with this delicious recipe, which has since spread all over the world, reaching the United Kingdom, America, and the Caribbean.
(Jan. 12, 2016) Each year on January 12, curried chicken lovers enthusiastically celebrate National Curried Chicken Day.
A common delicacy in South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Caribbean, chicken curry is also referred to as curry chicken.
Curried chicken typically consists of chicken stewed in an onion and tomato based sauce which is then flavored with ginger, garlic, chilies and a variety of spices, often including turmeric, cumin, coriander, cinnamon, cardamom and more. In some areas, these spices are omitted and replaced with a pre-made mixture known as curry powder.
In parts of the United States, curried chicken is a popular dish known as Country Captain Chicken, a stewed chicken dish that has been flavored with curry powder.
The following clip, originating from the Hobson-Jobson Dictionary, is regarding Country Captain:
- “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. [Riddell says: “Country-captain.—Cut a fowl in pieces; shred an onion small and fry it brown in butter; sprinkle the fowl with fine salt and curry powder and fry it brown; then put it into a stewpan with a pint of soup; stew it slowly down to a half and serve it with rice” (Ind. Dom. Econ. 176).]“
- 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. (Wikipedia)
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“Country Captain, was served to United States 32nd President, Franklin D. Roosevelt along with General George E. Patton in 1940 by Mrs. W.L. Bullard of Warm Springs, Georgia. Their strong liking of the dish, brought it’s popularity to the Southern United States.
OBSERVE
Try one of the following “tried and true” curried chicken recipes:
Curried Chicken Salad
Curried Chicken Thighs
Curried Chicken with Rice
