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Mutton Curry

A curry made with mutton, onion, butter, curry powder, salt, flour, and hot water or stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Mutton Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Fry the chopped onion in butter until soft.

  2. Mix curry powder, salt, and flour together, then stir the mixture into the butter and onion.

  3. Gradually add hot water or stock, stirring continuously.

Cook and serve

  1. Cut the mutton into pieces and add to the sauce.

  2. Simmer until the mutton is tender.

  3. Serve with a border of boiled rice.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + muttontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,781 recipes

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

  4. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + muttontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,531 recipes

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

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

Mutton
Provides the main protein; simmering slowly makes the cold cooked meat tender and juicy.
Butter
Carries the curry spices and softens the onion, adding richness to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a smooth sauce that clings to the meat.
Curry powder
Supplies the dominant spiced aroma and flavour of the dish.
Onion
Softens and sweetens as it cooks, forming the flavour base of the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the hot liquid gradually. Adding the liquid a little at a time while stirring continuously keeps the flour from forming lumps, so the sauce thickens smoothly instead of clumping.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, mutton. 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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