I'm not one who usually professes ignorance, however in one specific area I not only
acknowledge my lack of guile, but rather I actively celebrate it.

I am a curry novice.

That's not to say that I don't love curry, in fact I really do. But I came to realise
many years ago that there's a good and a bad side to knowledge, and it's important
to know which way the cookie is likely to crumble. Learning will expand your mind
and broaden your horizons, but once understood a thing may not be un-learned.

In my eyes, the beauty of curry lies in its mystery. I trained as a pastry chef,
and only came to the hot kitchen late in my career. When I finally found myself
surrounded my meats and fish rather than flours and sugars, it was in French and
Italian restaurants where curry was unheard of. I just never really had a chance to
learn.

And so each bite of a perfect 'jalfrezi' or 'massaman' has been like a glimpse of
fleeting beauty. Veiled from me curry is more tempting and intoxicating precisely
because I am not sure how it is done.

Men are most fascinated by that which we cannot understand.

Curry is a general term that describes a huge range of dishes from all over Asia
and beyond. The name originated in the Tamil language and simply means 'sauce'.
Hence a curry can be any concoction that has a saucy component. From the
mild and sweet 'korma' to the passionately fragrant 'rendang'. And don't forget
the 'vindaloo', although that's actually a Portuguese-inspired dish whose name
derives from 'vinha d'alhos' meaning 'with wine vinegar and garlic'.

And so it was that recently I decided to deflower myself, and enter the world
of curry. I pounded and mixed, stirred and grinded, until I came to understand
something that went far beyond the process of how the recipe could be made.
Indeed this special knowledge will never be un-learned.

I learned that the only thing more addictive than a perfectly mysterious curry, is a
perfect curry made with my own hands. The real mystery is why I waited so long to
try!

Go to Fast Ed's Chicken Curry recipe.

See all of Fast Ed's recipes.

This article was kindly provided by Fast Ed. It first appeared in The Manly Daily.