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Currie

A curry stew of veal, rabbit, or turkey simmered with onions, curry powder, and cream, served over rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Currie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curry base

  1. Melt the butter in a pan over medium heat.

  2. Add the flour and curry powder, stirring to combine.

  3. Pour in the cream and mix well.

  4. Season with salt.

  5. Set aside.

Brown the meat and onions

  1. In another pan, fry the meat until browned.

  2. Add sliced onions and cook until light brown.

Simmer and serve

  1. Transfer everything to a stew pan.

  2. Cover with boiling water.

  3. Simmer gently for 2-3 hours.

  4. Add more water if the stew becomes too thick.

  5. Serve with boiled dry rice.

  6. Squeeze lemon over the dish.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Lemon + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

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

  5. Flour + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Butter
Carries the curry flavour and gives the sauce richness.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks in the butter and cream.
Curry powder
Provides the main spiced aroma and flavour of the stew.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, mellow body to the sauce.
Meat (in the method)
Forms the substance of the stew and becomes tender during long simmering.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for 2-3 hours. Simmering slowly rather than boiling keeps the meat tender and prevents the sauce from breaking or scorching. Long, gentle heat breaks down connective tissue, so the meat becomes soft without turning tough or dry.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, cream, veal, rice):

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Vanillafits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, cream, veal, rice. 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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