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Curry of Kidney Beans

A curry made with kidney beans, tomatoes, onions, and spices, simmered in butter and drippings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,633 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Curry of Kidney Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Wash and soak the kidney beans overnight.

  2. Drain the beans, cover with water, and boil for 30 minutes.

  3. Drain again, cover with boiling water, and boil gently for 3 hours or until tender.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and drippings, then add the minced onion and cook until soft.

  2. Stir in the flour, curry powder, and cloves to make a sauce.

Combine and serve

  1. Pour the sauce over the beans and simmer for 10 minutes.

  2. Serve hot.

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. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  2. Clove + tomatotop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Kidney beans + tomatotop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together821 recipes

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

  5. Clove + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

Kidney beans
Provide the main body and texture of the curry once fully tender.
Onion
Softens and adds sweetness and savoury base flavour to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the fat.
Butter
Carries flavour and adds richness to the sauce.
Tomato
Adds acidity and body to the sauce.

The step that matters

Boiling the beans until tender. Dried kidney beans must be soaked and boiled thoroughly, since undercooked kidney beans contain lectins that are harmful and can cause stomach upset. Boiling them fully softens the starches and makes them safe and tender to eat.

Swap the kidney beans

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

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Lentilsfits better
  4. Kidney beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, tomato, onion, butter, flour. 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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