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Curry of Turkey

A savory turkey curry made with butter, flour, curry powder, onion, lemon juice, broth, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Turkey and chicken work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 688 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-decenal, which smells green, must. The science ↓

Curry of Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curry base

  1. Melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Fry the chopped onion for a few minutes.

  3. Stir in the flour and curry powder.

  4. Add the chicken broth and bring to a boil.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the sliced turkey and cook slowly for 7 to 8 minutes.

  2. Stir in the cream and lemon juice.

  3. Serve.

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. Turkey + chickentop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together688 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-decenal (green, must).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Onion + chickentop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Turkey + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

Cold turkey
Provides the protein; it is already cooked, so it only needs gentle heating through.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth sauce as it cooks with the butter.
Curry powder
Supplies the spiced, aromatic flavour that defines the dish.
Cream
Adds richness and a smoother, softer texture to the sauce.
Chicken broth
Forms the liquid base of the sauce and carries the curry flavour.

The step that matters

Cook the turkey slowly after adding it. The turkey is already cooked, so prolonged high heat would toughen and dry the meat. A gentle simmer heats it through while keeping it tender.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, butter, flour, onion, chicken, cream):

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Grapefits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, butter, flour, onion, chicken, cream. 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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