Curry Powder: The Kitchen Sink Spice Blend

Curry powder, involving a myriad of complex South Asian spices, has been called the kitchen sink mix of spices. The blend always tends to be the focus of a curry dish – warm, intensely spiced, and with a heavy dose of heat. For that reason, I might call it the hired help of cooking: it does most, if not all, of the work for you. Let the spices do the work for you in this recipe from Rice & Curry, S.H. Fernando Jr.’s new cookbook. Serious Eats offers up the lightly spicy chicken curry recipe, which, in the world of Sri Lankan cooking, is a great place to start. It even includes instructions for making your own curry. If grinding your own roasted spice blends isn’t on your usual Wednesday night agenda, though, they also provide faster solutions. (Read: store-bought, judgment free.) And, if spicy, exotic curries aren’t enough incentive for you, Serious Eats is also giving away a few copies of Rice & Curry. Go ahead, go win books. (And make curries.) S. H. Fernando Jr.'s Sri Lankan Chicken Curry from Serious Eats