Singapore-Style Shrimp Curry with Scented Rice

        Anyone with even a passing interest in Indian food will surely cross paths with Madhur Jaffrey.  An accomplished actress, she has appeared in more than 20 movies and was muse to and star in Merchant and Ivory’s marvelous films including “Shakespeare Wallah”, “Heat and Dust ” and “Cotton Mary”.  But she is also a true star in the kitchen and has written 15 books on Indian cooking including “From Curries to Kebabs: Recipes from the Indian Spice Trail” (Clarkson Potter 2003) which is where I found this recipe.

Country Captain Chicken

        It’s not often that I share with you a recipe with such an interesting background as Country Captain, a dish steeped in the lore of the Low Country of South Carolina and Georgia.   It’s found in every Southeastern Junior League cookbook but its origins go back considerably further than the League.  Its earliest known version is found in a cookbook published in Philadelphia in 1857.  But it owes a sizeable debt to two American cooking pioneers and an American Southern Cooking legend herself, Edna Lewis.