Madras Curry Powder

What is Madras curry—and can you use it in place of regular curry powder?

No doubt you’re familiar with plain old curry powder, often labeled “sweet” or “mild,” but just what is Madras curry powder? Originating in southern India (it takes its name from the city of Madras, now Chennai), this hot curry powder contains many of the same spices as sweet curry powder, including coriander, turmeric, cumin, and fennel, but turns up the heat with such pungent spices as black pepper, mustard seed, chili peppers, fenugreek, and even aromatic garlic. We develop most of our recipes with the more common sweet curry powder, but we tried Madras in one of our chicken dishes—to a bad effect. It made the sauce overwhelmingly peppery and bitter. The moral of this story is to use regular (sweet or mild) curry powder unless a recipe specifies Madras.