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Curried Kabobs

A slow‑cooked meat and apple dish flavored with curry powder and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Curried Kabobs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the meat into pieces about the size of a shilling.

  2. Slice the onions and apples.

  3. Fry the onions in butter until brown, then remove the onions from the pan and reserve them.

Make the curry sauce

  1. Mix the curry powder with a little stock or water until it reaches a cream-like consistency, then stir it into the butter used for frying the onions.

  2. Cook the mixture for 10 minutes.

Stew and serve

  1. Add the meat, onions, and apples to the curry sauce.

  2. Stir and stew for 1.5 to 2 hours, adding more stock if needed.

  3. Ensure the meat is tender and the curry sauce separates before serving.

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

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

  2. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Onion + appletop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,206 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef, mutton, or veal
Provides the meat that becomes tender through long, slow stewing.
Onions
Browning in butter builds sweetness and savory depth in the sauce.
Apples
Add a mild sweetness and fruity body to the curry sauce.
Curry powder
Supplies the spice aroma and flavor that define the sauce.
Butter
Carries the curry flavors and enriches the sauce with fat.

The step that matters

Stewing the meat slowly until tender. Tough cuts need long, gentle simmering so their connective tissue breaks down into gelatin. Stewing too hard or too briefly leaves the meat firm or dry, and the sauce may not reach a balanced, well-blended texture.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Applethe original

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