Curries around the world
The term curry is originally a Tamil word referring to various kinds of dishes common in South India made with vegetables or meat and usually eaten with rice. The term is used more broadly, especially in the Western Hemisphere, to refer to almost any spiced, sauce-based dishes cooked in various south and southeast Asian styles, or to anything what one might eat in a Indian restaurant or curry house. This imprecise umbrella term is largely an artifact of the British raj. Well-known Indian dishes include Korma, Madras, Vindaloo, Butter Chicken and Rogan Josh. Curry used in this sense is often accompanied by breads like naan, roti or popadums.
In Tamil cuisine, from where the word originated, curry refers to any dry preparation involving meat or vegetables shallow-fried with dry spices. Used as a word in itself, it usually means chicken curry or mutton curry; the dishes made with vegetables are usually referred to with the vegetable as prefix - e.g. Potato curry, Beans curry. Curry is usually eaten with Rice and Sambar or Rasam.
In other varieties of Indian cuisine, curry is a sauce - sometimes considered a soup - made by stirring yoghurt into a roux of ghee (clarified butter) and besan (chick pea flour). The spices added vary, but usually include turmeric and black mustard seed.
In British cuisine, the word curry denotes a dish flavored with curry powder, usually roasted until it turns fairly dark. This is especially true for non-vegetarian dishes. There is Lamb Curry, Chicken Curry, Beef Curry and so on.
British Indian restaurants have developed the Curry to such a level that it has become an integral part of British Cuisine. Some Indian food is actually exported from the United Kingdom to India. (There was an instance of an Englishman asking for a local curry to be sent to Australia).
British curries are generally arranged by strengths that roughly follow the order below in terms of strength (going from mild to very hot indeed):
- Korma
- Madras
- Vindaloo
- Phaal
Britain is in fact the home of two widely familiar "Indian" dishes, 
