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Game Curry

A curry of wild birds simmered in brown gravy with curry powder, lemon juice, cocoa‑nut, and acid apple pulp, served with rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,366 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

Game Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the birds

  1. Cut the wild birds into small joints.

  2. Fry the joints in hot butter until lightly browned.

  3. Score the joints slightly and place a little curry powder in each opening.

Simmer in curry gravy

  1. Squeeze the juice of a lemon over the joints.

  2. Cover the joints with good brown gravy and let them simmer gently for 20 minutes.

  3. Add 1 tablespoon of curry powder, 1 dessert spoon of pounded cocoa-nut, 1 dessert spoon of acid apple pulp, and ¼ pint of gravy for every pound of meat.

  4. Simmer for an additional 15 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve with rice around 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. Lemon + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

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

  2. Cocoa + appletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together52 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Cocoa + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together93 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Apple + ricetop 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).

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

What each ingredient does

Wild birds
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender through long gentle simmering in the sauce.
Butter
Browns the joints on the surface, adding color and a rich, toasted flavor.
Curry powder
Supplies the spiced aroma and flavor that define the dish.
Brown gravy
Forms the liquid base of the sauce and keeps the meat moist while it simmers.
Cocoa-nut
Adds richness and body to the sauce, thickening it slightly as it cooks.
Acid apple
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the richness of the gravy.

The step that matters

Simmer gently after adding the curry and gravy. A gentle simmer lets the meat soften and the spices infuse without the gravy reducing too fast or the meat toughening. A hard boil would make the joints dry and tough.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, cocoa, apple, rice):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Grapefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cocoa, apple, 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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