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Curry Sour

A stew of ox cheek, onions, potherbs, and rice flavored with curry powder, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,433 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Curry Sour

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the meat from the ox-cheek well.

  2. Combine the soaked meat, sliced onions, potherbs, and water in a stewpan.

  3. Remove the scum frequently.

  4. Strain the mixture.

Stew

  1. Add the soaked rice, curry powder, pepper, and salt.

  2. Stew for four hours.

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

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

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

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

  4. Meat + ricetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,481 recipes

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

  5. Meat + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,364 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Ox-cheek meat
Provides the main protein, which becomes tender and rich during long gentle stewing.
Onions
Build the savory base of the stew and add sweetness as they soften.
Soaked rice
Thickens the stew as its starch releases during cooking.
Curry powder
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour to the broth.

The step that matters

Removing the scum. Scum is coagulated protein and impurities that rise to the surface as the liquid heats. Skimming it often keeps the broth clear and free of bitter or off flavours.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, rice, pepper. 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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