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To Make Curry

A meat curry made with curry powder, onions, and a gravy base, simmered and served with rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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To Make Curry

Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Make Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curry base

  1. Fry the curry powder and flour in butter until light brown.

  2. Add boiling water to make a stiff paste, then stir in the beef gravy.

  3. Slice the onions and fry them in butter until brown.

Cook and serve

  1. Cut the meat into small pieces and add it to a stew-pan with the curry mixture, onions, and grated lemon rind.

  2. Stew until the meat is tender, then add vinegar, lemon juice, and salt to taste.

  3. Simmer for five minutes and 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Meat + beeftop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,533 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Meat
Provides the main protein, which becomes tender through long, slow stewing.
Flour
Thickens the curry base and helps it cling to the meat and onions.
Onions
Add sweetness and body as they brown and soften into the sauce.
Beef gravy
Supplies savory depth and liquid to the stew.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, spiced sauce.

The step that matters

Stew until the meat is tender, then add vinegar and lemon juice. Acid added too early can keep meat from softening during long simmering, so the acids go in only after the meat is tender. Tender meat needs gentle, prolonged heat to break down its connective tissue.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, flour, butter, beef, onion, vinegar):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, flour, butter, beef, onion, vinegar. 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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