h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Howabout all the lovely side dishes, nan bread, onion bhaji, mushroom bhaji, sag aloo etc?
There's also the ritual of ordering popadoms which usually arrive with sit pots of chopped onion,
mint sause, mango chutney and uneatable lime pickle...yummy!

'uneatable lime pickle'? How about green chilli pickle? Even hotter than the lime pickle, but strangely addictive. So hot that you can use onions to cool your mouth down. It doesn't seem to be universal in curry houses, but several in Hemel Hempstead have it.

Well everybody I have had a curry with always leave the lime pickle SILVER (I dont know
where the word "sit" came from!?!) pots completely full...anyway a curry isnt complete
without a couple of popadoms to start with...and a few of pints of beer to wash
it all down with. I gather that a lemon is the cure for a burning curry as it is acidic and
a curry is ahkaline...true or false?

I think you'll find that milk is good with a curry. Most curry houses sell a drink called lhassi (not sure of the spelling) which is a vaguely yoghurt-flavoured drink. It's very good for soothing a burned mouth.

And milk is generally used as a remedy to heartburn and indigestion, so I suspect the enemy is acid, and the cure is alkali.

Any biologists or food chemists care to put us atraight?

I agree with Jim that lassi is a good accompaniment - I prefer the sweet one to the salty, but that's just me being a soft poof. As for the spelling, I think the anglicisation process is a bit random, it probably depends on your local curry house.

As for the pickle, I think I'm right in saying that the very sharp acidic one is often aubergine (brinjal) pickle, though there seems to be some lime juice in there too.

Coconut and yoghourt are the two classic cooling ingredients if curry is too hot (lassi is soured milk, virtually yoghourt). In Bournemouth we used to get a bright red dish of desiccated coconut as one of the little pots, which worked quite nicely.

I thought lhassi was made with buttermilk. I have made it at home with that and mangos. Mmmm. My very good friend Balvinder invites me to celebrate Dwahli every year. She lays on yogurt as cooling agent - I can't cope otherwise! She also says thats why Indian people eat such sweet desserts - the sugar cools the mouth. It does seem to work.

I've also been told that something sweet is the best antidote. While eating an Indonesian dish a friend bit into a green chilli - very painful. She was advised to eat or drink something sweet to take away the heat.

It seems like we need to guide some of our co-researchers through the curry maze. To this end I've started a "beginner's guide" (P93179), on which I'd welcome comments and additions.

Yoghourt is definitely the best thing to cool after a hot curry. It is also the principal ingredient in lassi, which is made with yoghourt, water and ice. (Plus, of course, either salt or something sweet - I've never made the sweet variety so I can't remember if the sweetener is simply sugar!)

BTW, reading the description of side dishes brought a warm glow of nostalgia for my days in England. In Scotland you tend not to need much in the way of side dishes because the main course plus bread is just about enough to remove the ability to walk.

If any of you are ever in Glasgow, seek out Balbir's Pure Vegetarian Restaurant in Hyndland Street: this place serves the best Indian food I have ever had in a restaurant (meat or veggie), with some dishes I have never seen before. The cooking is superb because it is entirely done by women, so it is more "home-cooking" style than bog-standard restaurant style. Side dishes? You can just sit down and say "Give me some of everything" and dish after dish is brought to the table. And it's unlikely to cost £20 a head.

I think I feel the need for another visit coming on.

Two more visits since then... Gods, the food is good there!