Being a hardcore foodie, I love almost all types of food, but Indian food and Thai food are my absolute favourites. Weighing both the cuisines have curry but how the two cuisines differ. I thought what would be best then to draw out the differences in the curry and see which curry wins.
The word curry initially originated among the Tamil people of India and Sri Lanka and was freshly used to explain the combination of a variety of meat and vegetable dishes that were cooked using a rub of spices mixed without sauce. One of the major ingredients in Indian curry is the use of curry leaves while making a blend of spices. From here started the journey of curry and spread across all of Asia keeping Thailand in particular and its famous Thai curry. In Thailand, the Thai curry is made with a curry paste that could be either red, yellow or green that is mixed with coconut milk to form a thick sauce.
Different or Similar
Indian curry is a blend of spices that contains turmeric, cumin, coriander and garam masala which may or may not be stewed with curry leaves which is not as heavy, unlike the Thai curry. Thai curry is all about using a variety of curry pastes, mixed with coconut milk, to form a rich sauce in which meat or vegetables are boiled. But let’s just cherish what they both share, originally, is the abundance in the flavour of tantalizing spices.
Thai curries are created using the principle ingredients that is the use of a curry paste and heavily influenced ingredients such as ginger, garlic, lemongrass, galangal (Thai ginger), and chilli peppers that are quite dominant in taste. An interesting way to differentiate the Thai curries is through the chillies that have been used for cooking. Chillies define the colour and the spice level, playing a major role to check the hottest, and red curry uses red chiles to give it a milder heat and the unique red colour. Yellow Thai curry contains turmeric and a more moderate amount of chilli making it the lightest of all Thai curries.
There are indeed few ingredients that are shared between the two cuisines such as ginger, garlic, turmeric, chilli peppers, and cilantro.
Both the curries have its level of spicy but the Thai curry relies heavily upon the coconut milk whereas Indian curry is all about the spices and far less saucy and the taste is miles apart. If Indian food gets thick, it tends to rely heavily on clarified butter or ghee and cream in many dishes, whereas Thai food has no substance of dairy products.
Eventually, these two nations may share the name “curry” but are irrelative and don’t taste similar at all. Both the curries have the peculiar distinctions that make them unique.
To decide which is the best; one has to go on an appetising journey and decide for themselves.
What is your choice Indian curry or Thai curry?