The coriander-seed and fenugreek must each be parched very carefully, i.e., roasted like coffee berries, before being pounded, and the other ingredients should be cleaned and dried, each separately, and, when pounded, should be well sifted.

In order to preserve the proportions after the seeds have been powdered and sifted, it is necessary to obtain much larger quantities of the various ingredients in the first instance. Coriander-seed, for example, is very oily and only a part of it will pass through the sieve; twenty-four ounces of the seed will not yield more than eight ounces of powder: eight ounces of turmeric root will give four of powder : cummin-seed loses about one-third of its original weight in the process of sifting, and dried chilli skin about half.

Weights having been tested, then the whole of the powders should be mixed, a quarter of a bottle of salt being sprinkled in by degrees during the process. The bottles, thoroughly cleansed and dried in the sun, may now be filled and corked tightly down, the tops being securely waxed over.

Some recommend that, when the powder has been mixed, it should be browned in melted butter over the fire, then dried in the sun, and powdered again, in order to tone down the strong flavour of the cummin-seed.

This is a stock powder, the flavour of which can be varied by the use of certain spices, and green leaves, garlic, onions, green ginger, almond, cocoanut, etc., at the time of cooking the curry.

The spices, which should be used according to taste and discretion, are these:- cloves (laoong), mace (jawatri), cinnamon (kulmi darchini), nutmeg (jaephal), cardamoms (eelachi), and allspice (seetul ckini gach). A salt-spoonful of one, or at most of two, of these aromatic powders blended, will suffice for a large curry. Dr. Kitchener's precept, viz., that the mixing of several spices is a blunder, should never be forgotten.

The green leaves that are often useful when judiciously introduced are:- fennel (souf), "maythi bajee" lemon-grass (uggea-ghas), bay-leaves (tajipatha), " karay-panic," "kotemear" leaves (green coriander), etc.

When green ginger is used it should be sliced very fine, and pounded to a paste; a dessert-spoonful being sufficient for one curry.

The indispensably necessary suspicion of sweet-acid can be produced most readily by a dessert-spoonful of powdered or moist sugar and the juice of a lime, or a spoonful of vinegar. A table-spoonful of sweet chutney and the juice of a lime make a good substitute; but a table-spoonful of red currant jelly, with one of chutney, and a little vinegar of lime juice, form to my mind the nicest combination for dark curries.

I strongly advocate the very capital plan of making a fresh paste of some of the above adjuncts, in sufficient quantity for the curry in hand, and blending it with the stock powder when cooking the latter. Here is a reliable recipe :- One small onion, one clove of garlic, one dessertspoonful of turmeric, one of freshly-roasted coriander-seed, one of poppy-seed, a tea-spoonful of Nepaul pepper, one of sugar, one of salt, and one of grated green ginger. Pound all these with sufficient good salad oil to make a paste. Also pound twelve almonds, and one ounce of cocoanut, with a little lime juice to assist the operation, Then mix the two pastes, and stir into them a salt-spoonful of cinnamon or clove-powder. A heaped up table-spoonful of this paste to one of the stock powder will produce a very excellent result. Additional heat can be obtained by those who like very hot curries if red chilli powder be added to the above ingredients according to taste. This paste will keep if put away carefully and covered up.

Having satisfied ourselves as to the composition of our powder and paste,

We may now work out, step by step, the process to be followed in cooking a chicken curry.

Choose a nice young chicken - and here let me point out that large chickens nearly full grown ought never to be used in curries - and having cut it up neatly as for a fricassee, place the pieces aside, and dredge over them a little flour. Next take all the trimmings, neck, pinions, leg bones, feet, head, etc., with any scraps of meat that can be spared, and cast them into a sauce-pan with an onion sliced, a carrot sliced, half a dozen pepper corns, a bit of celery, a pinch of salt and one of sugar, cover them with cold water and make the best broth you can. When ready, strain the contents of the sauce-pan into a bowl, and skim it clean. A good breakfast-cupful of weak stock should thus be obtained. Lastly, make a breakfast-cupful of milk of cocoanut, or almond.

Now take your stew-pan, and having sliced up six good shallots, or two small white onions, cast the rings into it, with two ounces of Denmark, Normandy, or other good tinned butter; add a finely-minced clove of garlic, and fry till the onions turn a nice yellow brown. Then add a heaped-up table-spoonful of the stock powder, and one of the paste, or, if you have not made the latter, two table-spoonfuls of the powder. Cook the curry-stuff with the onions and butter for a minute or two. slowly, adding by degrees a wine-glassful of the cocoanut milk, and then also by degrees the breakfast-cupful of broth. The effect of this when simmered for a quarter of an hour will be a rich, thick, curry gravy, or sauce. The stew-pan should now be placed en bain-marie while we proceed to prepare the chicken.

Take a frying-pan: melt in it an ounce of butter, or clarified beef suet, add a shallot cut up small, and fry for a couple of minutes. Next put the pieces of chicken into the saute-pan, and lightly fry them. As soon as slightly coloured, the pieces of chicken should be transferred to the stew-pan in which they should rest for at least half an hour, marinading, as it were, in the curry gravy. After that, the stew-pan should be placed over a gentle fire, and if the liquid be found insufficient to cover the pieces of chicken, stock, if available, or water, should be added. A gentle simmering process should now be encouraged, during which the bay-leaf, chutney, and sweet-acid should be added. If powder without fresh paste has been used, the pounded almond and cocoanut must now be put in, with a little spice and grated green ginger. The curry gravy should at this period be tasted, and if a little more acid or sweet be found necessary, the proper correction should be made. As soon as the pieces of chicken have become tender, thoroughly stewed, that is to say, a coffee-cupful of cocoanut "milk," (the infusion I previously mentioned), should be stirred in, and in three minutes the operation will be complete.

If a semi-dry or dry curry be required, the gravy must be still further reduced by simmering with the lid off, the pieces of meat being continually stirred about with a wooden spoon to prevent their catching at the bottom of the pan. When the proper amount of absorption has been attained, remove the pan and serve.

Now, those to whom the slipshod method of currymaking, ordinarily followed by native cooks, is familiar, will, perhaps, think, that the process I have recommended is needlessly troublesome. The separate frying of the chicken, the period of rest in the bain-marie, etc., may seem to them unnecessary. I am, however, perfectly confident that in order to produce a dish of a superior class, we must be prepared to take all this trouble, bringing an enlightened system of cookery to bear upon the condiments and ingredients which, so to speak, provide the curry flavour. I look upon a chicken curry as a fricassee, or blanquette a l' Indienne, and consider that it should certainly be treated according to the principles of scientific cookery.

The soaking of meat in the liquid curry-stuff is an im-portant point, especially when previously cooked meat is to be carried. Remember how much better a salmis or a hash tastes if the meat of which it is composed has been marinaded for an hour or so, before being finally heated up, in the carefully-made gravy or sauce composed for it.

This, I think, accounts for an opinion I once heard expressed by a friend of undoubted ability in culinary criticism, to the effect that he always found curries of a certain kind better when warned up and served as a rechauffe than when presented for the first time. If a gravy curry be kept during the night in a china curry dish, and be resuscitated the next morning with some fresh butter, onions and a little gravy, it ought, if anything, to be found better than on the previous night, since the meat has become thoroughly flavoured by the curry gravy, while the latter has become reduced and so strengthened by the second simmering.

These directions will be found practicable with most ordinary meat curries. Those made of fresh fish, prawns, and shellfish, require a somewhat different process while those of minced cooked meat, tinned or cooked fish, dressed vegetables, and hard-boiled eggs, merely require to be gently heated up in a carefully made curry gravy.

The Malay or "Ceylon curry" as it is sometimes called, is, of course, a specialite and there are kubabs, quoormas, etc., etc., that need separate consideration.