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 ↓
Curries
Ingredients
Directions
Melt the butter in a stewpan.
Add the meat and sliced onions; cook over medium heat until light brown.
Pour in the broth and let it simmer for 20 minutes.
In a bowl, mix curry powder, flour, and salt with a little cold water until smooth. Add the mixture to the stewpan and stir until it boils.
Simmer for an additional 20 minutes.
Remove the meat and strain the sauce through a sieve.
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.
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Rabbit + oniontop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,292 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Rabbit + flourtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,067 recipes
Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).
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Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together42,912 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Butter + rabbittop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,448 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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
- Butter
- Enriches the sauce and helps the onions and meat brown in the pan.
- Onions
- Soften and brown to add sweetness and savoury depth to the sauce.
- Curry powder
- Provides the main spiced aroma and flavour of the dish.
- Flour
- Thickens the sauce as it simmers with the broth.
The step that matters
Stirring the curry powder paste into the stewpan. Flour mixed into liquid can form lumps unless it is first smoothed with cold water. Stirring until the mixture boils lets the starch swell and thicken the sauce evenly.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, rabbit, flour):
- Shallotfits better
- Arrowrootfits better
- Chivefits better
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, rabbit, flour. 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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