Shahi paneer, malai kofta, and butter chicken named among top 10 curries in the world

Taste Atlas — an experiential travel online guide for traditional food — recently compiled the list of best-rated curries in the world

3 min readNew DelhiJun 15, 2023 02:10 PM IST

Butter chicken is one of the most popular Indian dishes (Source: Unsplash)

Originating in the Indian subcontinent, curry is now a global dish which is relished in many countries, including Thailand, Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, South Africa, Mauritius, Singapore, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the USA.

Since curry is widely served and enjoyed across the world, there is a vast variety to choose from. Making it easy for all of us, Taste Atlas — an experiential travel online guide for traditional food — recently compiled the list of best-rated curries in the world. To prepare this list, 326,098 ratings were recorded, of which the system recognised 2,20,925 as legitimate.

In the top 10 rankings, three popular Indian curries, namely shahi paneer, malai kofta, and butter chicken, occupied fourth, fifth, and sixth spots, respectively. On the other hand, korma, vindaloo, keema, saag paneer, Madras curry, rogan josh, mattar paneer, rajma, rajma chawal, chana masala, rasam, paneer makhani, jalfrezi, aloo matar, Punjabi Kadhi, kadhi, chicken rezala, Goan fish curry, Sindhi kadhi, chingri malai curry, handi paneer, Malabar fish curry, and Bengali chicken curry also featured in the top 50 rankings.

According to Taste Atlas, the term ‘curry’ stems from the Tamil word kari and denotes a variety of dishes prepared in a thin, soup-like spiced sauce. “Curry can mean two things: a stew of curry-spiced meat, fish or vegetables that is traditionally served with either rice, bread or cornmeal, or a dish seasoned with either curry powder or curry paste, both of which usually consist of turmeric, cumin, coriander, chillies, and fenugreek,” it noted.

Here are the 10 best-rated curries in the world:

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*Phanaeng curry
*Khao soi
*Kare
*Shahi paneer
*Malai kofta
*Butter chicken
*Green curry
*Massaman curry
*Kare raisu
*Thai curry

Describing shahi paneer, Taste Atlas said that it originated from India’s Moghul (Mughal) cuisine and is a cheese curry that is prepared with paneer cheese, onions, almond paste, and a rich, spicy tomato-cream sauce. “Often referred to as the royal paneer, traditionally, it is prepared during special occasions and festivities as a vegetarian main course,” it added.

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Malai kofta is a traditional North Indian dish consisting of fried potato and paneer balls in a creamy sauce. “A typical dish of Mughal cuisine, developed in Medieval India by the cooks of the Mughal Empire, it is essentially a vegetarian substitute for a meatball curry, malai meaning cream, and kofta meaning dumplings.”

Butter chicken, one of the most popular Indian dishes, originated in Delhi during the 1950s when Kundan Lal Gujral opened his restaurant, Moti Mahal. “The restaurant’s cooks combined leftover marinade juices with tomatoes and butter, and then stewed the tandoor-cooked chicken in it, without even knowing that they have accidentally stumbled upon one of the most loved dishes ever and a future international delicacy,” it said.

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