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Curries, Potted Meats, &C.

A mutton curry made with onions, butter, flour, curry powder, and spices, served with rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Eliza Acton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Curries, Potted Meats, &C.

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spices and base

  1. Dry, pound, sift, weigh, and mix the spices in the proportions: 8 oz turmeric, 4 oz coriander seed, 2 oz cumin seed, 2 oz fenugreek seed, and ½ oz cayenne.

  2. Take the heart of a cabbage, chop finely, add sliced apples, lemon juice, half a teaspoon black pepper, and 1 large tablespoon of the curry powder; mix well.

  3. In a pot, fry 6 finely chopped onions until brown; add minced garlic (size of a nutmeg), 2 oz fresh butter, and 2 tbsp flour; stir.

  4. Add 1 pt strong mutton or beef gravy to the pot; bring to a boil.

Make the curry

  1. Add the cabbage mixture to the boiling gravy; stir and let stew together; if not hot enough, add cayenne pepper.

  2. Add roasted fowl, rabbit, lean pork or mutton chops, lobster, or other meat of choice; simmer until cooked.

Cook the rice and serve

  1. Rinse rice in water, change water frequently, soak for at least half an hour; bring a large pot of water to rapid boil; add rice; cook 15 min; strain into a dish; wipe pot; return drained rice to pot; cover with cloth and cook over gentle fire for a few minutes until grains separate.

  2. Serve curry over rice; do not cover dish.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

646Calories
16 gProtein
14 gFat
114 gCarbs

Counts 8 of 9 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 8 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12
Turmeric1 tsp ground (3g)9
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Cayenne1 tsp (1.8g)6
Muttonnot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Eliza Acton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Turmeric + lemontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,192 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Turmeric + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together372 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Turmeric + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Turmeric + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,637 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Frying until brown builds deep savoury flavour and sweetness as the base of the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as it cooks with the butter and onions into a smoother sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries the spice flavours through the curry.
Mutton
Provides the main meat and savoury body in the gravy, which simmers with the other meats.
Apples (in the method)
Add mild sweetness and body to the cabbage mixture that stews into the gravy.
Turmeric
Gives the curry powder its golden colour and earthy aroma.

The step that matters

Adding the cayenne and checking the heat. Cayenne heat builds gradually as the gravy stews, so tasting before adding more prevents an overly hot curry. Stirring the cabbage into the boiling gravy keeps it from sticking and lets its flavours meld.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turmeric, butter, mutton, pepper, lemon, flour, nutmeg):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turmeric, butter, mutton, pepper, lemon, flour, nutmeg. 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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