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Game Curry

A curry made with wild birds, butter, curry powder, lemon, brown gravy, cocoa-nut, acid apples, served over rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 in one or two places and fill with curry powder.

  4. Squeeze lemon juice over the joints.

Simmer and serve

  1. Cover with brown gravy and simmer for 20 minutes.

  2. Add curry powder, cocoa-nut, acid apples, and gravy for every pound of meat.

  3. Simmer for an additional 15 minutes.

  4. Serve with 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. 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 during the long simmer in gravy.
Brown gravy
Supplies liquid and savory body, keeping the meat moist as it simmers.
Curry powder
Supplies the spiced flavor that defines the dish.
Butter
Fat for frying the joints, adding richness and promoting browning on the surface.
Cocoa-nut
Adds richness and body to the sauce, with a mild sweetness.
Acid apples
Add tartness and body to the sauce, balancing the richness of the meat.

The step that matters

Frying the joints until lightly browned. Browning creates savory flavors through the Maillard reaction. Frying in hot butter in batches that are not crowded helps the joints brown rather than steam, which builds flavor before the simmer.

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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