Skip to main content
Main

Curry of Cold Roast Beef

A curry made by simmering cold roast beef with butter, onion, gravy, and curry powder, served over rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Curry of Cold Roast Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the cold roast beef into small square pieces and dredge with flour.

  2. In a stewpan, melt the butter and fry the onion until golden brown.

Make the curry

  1. Add the beef and gravy to the pan, then stir in the curry powder.

  2. Start with 1 teaspoon of curry powder and taste before adding more.

  3. Let it simmer for 10 to 12 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve with a bowl of cooked rice.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Beef + ricetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,265 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Beef + meattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,533 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cold roast beef
Provides the main protein; dredging in flour helps the pieces hold a little coating in the sauce.
Flour
Coats the beef and thickens the gravy sauce as it simmers.
Onion
Browning in butter builds a sweet, savory base for the curry.
Butter
Carries the curry powder's flavor and adds richness to the frying step.
Gravy
Supplies the liquid and meaty flavor that forms the curry sauce.
Curry powder
Supplies the spice blend that gives the dish its characteristic aroma and flavor.

The step that matters

Adding the curry powder. Curry powder contains aromatic spices that can turn bitter or raw if underused or overcooked, and its strength varies by brand. Starting small and tasting before adding more lets the cook balance heat and flavor without overpowering the beef.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, flour, butter, meat, rice):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, flour, butter, meat, rice. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

Roast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipesRice FrittersRice Fritters84 recipes