Country captain is a curried chicken and rice dish, which is popular in the

Southern United States The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, or simply the South) is a geographic and cultural region of the United States of America. It is between the Atlantic Ocean ...

. It was introduced to the United States through Charleston, Savannah, New York and Philadelphia, but has origins in the

Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a physiographical region in Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian Ocean from the Himalayas. Geopolitically, it includes the countries of Bangladesh, Bhutan, In ...

. The dish was also included in the U.S. military's Meal, Ready-to-Eat packs from 2000 to 2004, in honor of it being a favorite dish of

George S. Patton George Smith Patton Jr. (November 11, 1885 – December 21, 1945) was a general in the United States Army who commanded the Seventh United States Army in the Mediterranean Theater of World War II, and the Third United States Army in France ...

. It has also appeared on television shows in both the United States and in the United Kingdom, with chefs

Bobby Flay Robert William Flay (born December 10, 1964), is an American celebrity chef, restaurateur, and reality television personality. Flay is the owner and executive chef of several restaurants and franchises, including Bobby's Burger Palace, Bobby's ...

Atul Kochhar Atul Kochhar (born 31 August 1969) is an Indian-born, British-based chef and television personality. Kochhar was one of the first two Indian chefs to receive a Michelin star, awarded in London in 2001 whilst at Tamarind. He opened his own resta ...

and

Cyrus Todiwala Cyrus Rustom Todiwala OBE, Deputy Lieutenant, DL, (born 16 October 1956), is an Indian chef proprietor of ''Café Spice Namasté'' and a celebrity chef, celebrity television chef. He trained at the Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces chain in India, ...

all cooking the dish. Todiwala served his version to Queen

Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until her death in 2022. She was queen regnant of 32 sovereign states durin ...

as part of her Diamond Jubilee celebrations, as well as Kevin Gillespie during Top Chef season 17.

Description

In its basic form, country captain is a mild stew made with browned

chicken The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domesticated junglefowl species, with attributes of wild species such as the grey and the Ceylon junglefowl that are originally from Southeastern Asia. Rooster or cock is a term for an adu ...

pieces,

onion An onion (''Allium cepa'' L., from Latin ''cepa'' meaning "onion"), also known as the bulb onion or common onion, is a vegetable that is the most widely cultivated species of the genus '' Allium''. The shallot is a botanical variety of the on ...

s, and curry powder.

Almond The almond (''Prunus amygdalus'', syn. ''Prunus dulcis'') is a species of tree native to Iran and surrounding countries, including the Levant. The almond is also the name of the edible and widely cultivated seed of this tree. Within the genu ...

s and golden raisins or zante currants are usually added. Many versions also call for

tomato The tomato is the edible berry of the plant ''Solanum lycopersicum'', commonly known as the tomato plant. The species originated in western South America, Mexico, and Central America. The Mexican Nahuatl word gave rise to the Spanish word ...

es,

garlic Garlic (''Allium sativum'') is a species of bulbous flowering plant in the genus '' Allium''. Its close relatives include the onion, shallot, leek, chive, Welsh onion and Chinese onion. It is native to South Asia, Central Asia and northeas ...

, and bell peppers. The dish is served over white rice. With the exception of the rice, it is meant to be cooked all in the same pot. Chef Mamrej Khan has referred to the dish as one of the first fusion dishes to be developed, making it part of the

Anglo-Indian cuisine Anglo-Indian cuisine is the cuisine that developed during the British Raj in India. It was brought to England in the 1930s by the Veeraswamy restaurant, followed by a few others, but not by typical Indian restaurants. The cuisine introduced dish ...

. Country captain originated in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...

as a simple

spatchcock Butterflying is a way of preparing meat, fish, or poultry for cooking by cutting it almost in two, but leaving the two parts connected; it is then often boned and flattened. Spatchcocking is a specific method for butterflying poultry that invol ...

poultry or game recipe involving onions and

curry A curry is a dish with a sauce seasoned with spices, mainly associated with South Asian cuisine. In southern India, leaves from the curry tree may be included. There are many varieties of curry. The choice of spices for each dish in trad ...

and possibly enjoyed by British officers. One theory is that an early 19th-century British sea captain, possibly from the

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Sou ...

, working in the spice trade introduced it to the American South via the port of Savannah. The dish remains popular amongst the communities in

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the secon ...

, India. The "country" part of the dish's name dates from when the term referred to things of Indian origin instead of British, and so the term "country captain" would have meant a captain of Indian origin, a trader along the coasts of India. Others claim that the word "captain" in the title is simply a corruption of the word " capon". In 1991, ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' columnist Molly O'Neill researched the origin of the dish known as country captain, which had been a steady feature in southern cookbooks since the 1950s. Working with

Cecily Brownstone Cecily Brownstone (18 April 1909 – 30 August 2005), was a food writer, who wrote several cookbooks and articles about food over a period of 39 years. Canadian-born, Brownstone was the Associated Press Food Editor from 1947 to 1986—for t ...

, they discovered that the dish originally published in the United States in the pages of ''Miss Leslie’s New Cookery Book'' published in Philadelphia in 1857. The recipe required a "fine full-grown fowl". It also appeared in the kitchens of Alessandro Filippini, who was a chef with a restaurant on Wall Street in the 19th century. Fans of the dish have included Franklin D. Roosevelt, who encountered country captain while visiting the Little White House in Warm Springs, Georgia. Roosevelt introduced it to

, and it was Patton's love for the dish which subsequently resulted in it being added in his honor to the U.S. Army's Meal, Ready-to-Eat field rations in 2000. A variety of Southern chefs have recipes for the dish, including Paul Prudhomme, Paula Deen and Emeril Lagasse. The dish was featured on an episode of ''

Throwdown! with Bobby Flay ''Throwdown! with Bobby Flay'' is a Food Network television program in which celebrity chef Bobby Flay challenges cooks renowned for a specific dish or type of cooking to a cook-off of their signature dish. At the beginning of each show, Flay rec ...

'' in season 6 guest-starring Matt and Ted Lee. It also appeared on the

BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, ...

cooking show, '' Saturday Kitchen'', with chef

cooking the regular chicken and rice version of the dish.

Variations

Chef

cooked a variation of country captain on '' Saturday Kitchen''. His version was similar to shepherd's pie, in that the meat was baked under a layer of potato. He had previously cooked the dish for Queen

and the

Duke of Edinburgh Duke of Edinburgh, named after the city of Edinburgh in Scotland, was a substantive title that has been created three times since 1726 for members of the British royal family. It does not include any territorial landholdings and does not prod ...

at Krishna Avanti Primary School in Harrow as part of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations in 2012. That version of the dish used a rare breed of lamb from the Orkney Islands which had been fed on seaweed. The dish is also now on the menu of Todiwala's London restaurant, Café Spice Namasté.

References

{{Chicken dishes, state=collapsed American stews Anglo-Indian cuisine Lowcountry cuisine American chicken dishes 1857 introductions Curry dishes

Description

Variations

See also

References