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Madras Curry

A curry with onions, apple, curry powder, and meat simmered in gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and ketchup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 260 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Madras Curry

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cut the onions and fry them in the dripping or oil until brown.

  2. Transfer the onions to a stewpan and add the chopped apple and all other ingredients.

  3. Simmer the mixture until the meat or chicken is cooked through.

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. Sugar + ketchuptop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together260 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

  3. Apple + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  4. Mushroom + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,231 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  5. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Browning in the hot fat builds a deep, savoury base for the curry.
Curry powder
Provides the main spice flavour and aroma of the curry.
Apple
Adds a mild sweetness that softens the sharpness of the spices.
Meat or chicken
Supplies the protein that becomes tender during slow simmering.
Gravy or stock
Provides the liquid that carries the spices and moistens the dish.

The step that matters

Simmer the mixture until the meat or chicken is cooked through. Simmering gently over low heat lets the meat cook evenly and become tender while the sauce thickens. Boiling hard can toughen meat and make the sauce reduce unevenly, so the heat needs to stay gentle.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, vinegar, sugar, mushroom, ketchup, milk, meat):

  1. Grapefits about as well
  2. Applethe original
  3. Lemonfits about as well
  4. Avocadofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, vinegar, sugar, mushroom, ketchup, milk, meat. 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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