Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Curry
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the meat
Cut the meat into pieces.
Brown the meat in butter with the sliced onions over high heat.
Transfer the meat and onions to a saucepan with broth.
Simmer until the meat is cooked.
Make the sauce
Mix the curry powder with flour until smooth.
Stir the mixture into the sauce.
Simmer for 5 minutes.
Add the lemon juice.
Gradually stir in the thick cream.
Optionally, pound a small part of the meat and poultry livers to thicken the sauce.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together42,912 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,594 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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
- Meat
- Provides the main protein, which becomes tender as it simmers in the sauce.
- Curry powder
- Supplies the spice flavour that defines the dish.
- Flour
- Thickens the sauce so it clings to the meat.
- Thick cream
- Adds richness and a smooth, mellow body to the sauce.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the rich, spiced sauce.
The step that matters
Mixing the curry powder with flour until smooth. If the powder is added without being blended smoothly into flour, it clumps and stays raw-tasting; flour coats the spice particles so they disperse evenly when stirred into the liquid.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, butter, onion, veal, flour, cream):
- Coconutfits better
- Avocadofits better
- Raisinfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against meat, butter, onion, veal, flour, cream. 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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