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Veal Curry

A veal curry with onion, apple, butter, curry powder, flour, water, lemon juice, and rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Veal Curry

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Chop the onion and apple into small pieces and slices, respectively.

  2. In a saucepan, melt the butter and sauté the onion and apple until lightly browned.

Make the curry

  1. Stir in the curry powder, flour, and water.

  2. Add the veal pieces and season with salt, stirring to coat them in the mixture.

  3. Cover and simmer on low heat for 1.5 hours, or until the veal is tender.

  4. Squeeze in the lemon juice, stir, and serve with 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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Butter and flour 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

Veal
Provides the main protein, which becomes tender through long, gentle simmering in the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the onion and apple brown lightly at the start.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a sauce that clings to the veal pieces.
Curry powder
Supplies the spiced flavour that defines the dish.
Sour apple
Adds acidity and a fruity sweetness that balances the spices.
Onion
Builds savoury sweetness as it softens and browns in the butter.

The step that matters

Simmering the veal until tender. Veal is lean and can turn tough if cooked too fast or too hot. A covered, low simmer lets the connective tissue break down slowly while the liquid stays gently moving, keeping the meat moist and tender.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, butter, flour, veal, lemon):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter, flour, veal, lemon. 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.

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