Curry Leaf

Curry leaves come from the curry tree, a small tropical tree of the citrus family, usually four to six metres tall, native to the Indian subcontinent, southern China and mainland South-east Asia. It has been introduced elsewhere in South-east Asia and to Australia, where Queensland counts it as an environmental weed. The fragrant leaves are pinnate, each with eleven to twenty-one small leaflets, and the tree bears small white flowers followed by little glossy black fruits, each holding one large seed. Botanists long called it Murraya koenigii, and some sources still do. The leaves taste mild, aromatic and slightly bitter. They are a mainstay of southern and west-coast Indian cooking, usually fried in oil with mustard seed and onion at the start of a dish, and they also season food in Sri Lanka, Cambodia and Java. Dried leaves keep little of their aroma, so cooks pick them fresh, often minutes before use, and across the Indian subcontinent the tree grows in almost every household. The English word curry comes from the Tamil kari, a spiced sauce. Cunningham, who heads the plant simply as curry and stresses that he means the tree and not the cook's spice blend, gives it to Mars and to fire and to protection: it is burned at nightfall to keep evil influences away.