Day 6

It’s been a long day, full of “major” businesses. And by that I mean all the procedures that go into legitimizing the fact that I am now a Major, i.e. 18 years old. So unfortunately I didn’t get to potter around the kitchen much today, apart from making myself evening tea.

But this project was never solely about cooking. It is also about exploring food, ingredients and cuisines.

Now, I don’t remember exactly when, but one day this thought popped into my head: “Hey! Doesn’t Malaysian Yellow Curry taste quite a bit like Konkani seafood Ghashi?”

Malaysia and Konkan, both being coastal tropical regions, have many similarities in their cuisines. Both consume a staple of rice and fish, and make generous use of spices and coconut.

But the similarities between these two curries seem to go beyond just the geographic circumstances of their regions.

I compared Shyamalpachi’s ghashi recipe with that of yellow curry from a few reliable sources online: Apart from the fact that both dishes are made using freshly ground curry pastes, the key ingredients of the two curries include fresh grated coconut/coconut milk, ginger/galangal, dried byadgi chilies/dried Thai red chilies, shallots, garlic, turmeric powder, coriander seed powder, and coriander leafs/shoot (in ghashi/yellow curry respectively).

Each may contain a few other ingredients of their own, like tamarind in ghashi and lemongrass in yellow curry, but I’d say they’re similar enough to be long lost siblings…

I have already helped make ghashi twice in the last week. After doing the research to compare the two recipes this evening, I’m going to test my hypothesis that the two curries taste (suspiciously?) similar, by trying to cook up a Malaysian yellow curry from scratch in the next week.

Once I compare the two curries on the basis of taste, if my hypothesis is proven correct, I shall dig deeper into possible explanations. I already have some ideas, but I want to get a clear picture of how they are connected.