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Curried Chops

Curried chops simmered with apple, onion, curry powder, butter, and flour, served over rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and onion 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 ↓

Curried Chops

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the curry

  1. Trim some fat from the chops.

  2. In a stewpan, melt the butter and brown the chops quickly.

  3. Remove the chops from the pan.

  4. Chop the apple and onion and fry them in the same pan.

  5. Sprinkle the mixture with curry powder and flour.

  6. Pour in the stock or water and stir until it boils.

  7. Return the chops to the pan.

  8. Bring to a boil.

  9. Simmer gently for three hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Carefully dish the chops.

  2. Boil the gravy. Thicken if necessary by boiling without a lid.

  3. Season with salt and lemon juice.

  4. Pour over the chops.

  5. Cook the rice according to package directions.

  6. Rinse a small mold or cup in cold water, press the rice into it, and turn out.

  7. Serve the rice in a separate dish alongside the curry.

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. Rice + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Rice + appletop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,311 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

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

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

Chops
Browned first for flavor, then simmered until tender in the curry sauce.
Curry powder
Provides the main spiced aroma and flavor of the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as it cooks with the fat and liquid.
Butter
Fat for browning the chops and frying the apple and onion, carrying flavor.
Apple
Adds sweetness and body that softens into the sauce as it fries and simmers.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, spiced sauce.

The step that matters

Browning the chops quickly in butter. Searing creates browned flavor through the Maillard reaction. Browning too slowly or crowding the pan steams the meat instead, leaving the sauce flatter.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, lemon, rice, flour, onion. 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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