If you’re looking for basic, generic “curry” powder, I’ve found it in my local regular grocery store. You may be able to find it in Food Lion. That would give you an idea if you want to experiment with different spice mixes.
Yeah, I do need to get down to the supermarket a little later today (we’re low on milk), and I’ll look in the spice aisle to see what they have. Thanks to this thread, I know to look for something either without chilis or with chili peppers low on the ingredient list.
Also, if you can’t get the leaves, another passable substitute for kaffir lime leaves would be lime zest. Not entirely accurate, but the difference is slight.
Here’s a recipe for an authentic (Chu Chi) Thai curry paste that makes just such a substitution. All you really need are this paste, some eggplant, green beans, and coconut milk to make an authentic red curry. Of course since you are a vegetarian, it will be hard for you to make an authentic Thai curry in the first place, as they all generally contain dried shrimp paste and/or fish sauce. (Even the vegetarian versions! 
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No, it wouldn’t, but neither would regular butter. I, too, would say vegetable oil is a better substitute than butter for ghee. Ghee doesn’t really taste “buttery” in my opinion. It’s more of a full nutty kind of flavor. It’s important to leech out the milk solids, because milk solids burn at the frying temps you use for many Indian dishes. In particular, I remember in one of Madhur Jaffrey’s book how most Western cooks freak when she fries up her onions, as she does them over a very high heat, but just stirring constantly to keep them from burning.
As has been answered, they are leaves from the Kaffir lime tree. You can sometimes find them fresh in Thai groceries, more often frozen. If you can’t find any, don’t worry. If you want, you can substitute a little grated lime rind, but I’d just proceed through the recipe, omitting the leaves. They’re nice to have, but it won’t be a disaster to omit them.
To be completely pedestrian in the face of all the wonderful information in this thread, you can mix supermarket curry powder with mayonaise and toss in chicken and celery, etc. to make curry chicken salad. I have made Indian dishes from scratch, and they’re awesome, but it you just want a new flavor in your chicken salad, curry powder’s pretty good. You can find Madras curry powder in most supermarkets too, but that has more heat than, say, McCormick’s.
My husband makes an awesome curried tuna for sandwiches this way. Tuna, curry powder to taste, enough mayonnaise to make it wet to personal taste, chopped celery or green pepper for crunch, some chopped onion if you like it, and raisins for sweetness. The raisins are key, because they make a nice contrast to the heat of the curry powder. You could do the same thing with diced chicken, even replacing the raisins with apple, for a sort of curried chicken waldorf salad.
You can buy clarified butter/ghee too, if you don’t want to make it yourself. My local upscale grocery stores carries it frozen.
This is good info, and seems like a good place to start, thanks!
If I like this, I’ll probably “graduate” to some kind of curry made with coconut milk, because that sounds yummy!
Exactly. There are times when ghee is an absolute necessity. Curry isn’t one of them IME. Though it is easy enough to make ghee at home. Takes a while though.
It may not be necessary, and I’ve certainly made lots of curries with plain ol’ vegetable oil, but I just love the richness ghee adds that a curry which isn’t based on ghee is just missing a little umph for me. So, whenever I can find it, I use it. Here, you could find ghee at regular supermarkets–you don’t have to go upscale. Just look in the foreign foods section. I use Ziyad-brand butter ghee. Ziyad is a local brand which specialized in Mediterranean and Middle Eastern products. I would imagine other large metropolitan areas may also stock up on such ingredients.
Here is my friend Jaspreet’s ace yet easy masala recipe that he gave me, transcribed via my not-entirely-reliable memory. Pretty much all the quantities can be varied plus or minus 50%, depending how you feel. A wodge of lemon juice is a nice addition. If you want to add coconut milk for a bit of mildness you can, but add more chilli powder or it’ll be bland and rubbish.
As you can see, most of my culinary concerns have to do with appearing to be cooking, rather than actual results. Still, I have almost never managed to bugger this up, which is quite the rarity for me.
Right, if you just want to experiment, a little jar of generic curry powder off the spice rack will do you just fine for the purposes of this chicken salad. I wouldn’t suggest using it to make an actual curry, but to add the “curry” note for recipes like this, that’s all the recipe is calling for, anyway.
I doubt you’ll see chili or peppers on the ingredients list, most I’ve seen have an ingredients list that just says “spices” 
But really, I wouldn’t worry about the heat using that kind of curry powder. If you’re super-sensitive to spice of any kind that might be something, but it’s such a sweet salad with the apples and raisins that “spicy” doesn’t even come into play for most folks, even with six times the recommended curry powder, as I tend to serve it.
I’d be more concerned about whether or not you like the particular spice combination that is curry. Those spices just don’t exist in the Western panel of spices, so it will be a totally new mix of flavors. Yum!
A thai curry never uses ghee. Sunflower or peanut.
Bump everything up to tablespoons at the least. I find this a pussy curry. Tooo little spice.
Yes. But you don’t need sunflower or peanut oil. The way to do it – at least the way I’ve been taught – is to take the coconut milk, skim the cream off the top, and fry the cream in the pan until the oil separates out of it. When the oil separates out, you add in your curry paste.
Oh, absolutely. From Curries to Kebabs is my favorite book of hers. The recipes are awesome. (I could practically live on the chicken tikka masala.)
Fair enough. I just find it too greasy and heavy. 
Oh and if anyone’s interested – my family’s curry recipe.
Because, as we all know, machismo is the most important ingredient in a successful curry. Still, knock yourself out.
Failed to edit in time: it is of course entirely possible that I’ve forgotten a significant “b” in “tsp”, but still, this insistence that the amount of chilli you put in is somehow a measure of your manhood rather than a culinary choice really annoys me. And I like hot curries. This just isn’t one of them.
Interesting. I’ll have to give that recipe a try–it’s different enough in technique from most curry recipes I’ve tried (I don’t think I’ve had one that starts with poaching the chicken and reserving the stock). It looks much lighter that what I’m used to, but it looks quite yummy. What part of India was your grandmother from, just out of curiosity?
Dont forget Iran(Jal Frayses)