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Carrots with Curried Rice

A dish of curried rice served around sautéed carrots.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and carrot are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 21,601 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Carrots with Curried Rice

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curry

  1. Fry the onion in butter until soft.

  2. Add stock and curry powder, cover, and simmer for 20 minutes.

Cook the rice

  1. Cook the rice in boiling water until tender.

Brown the carrots and serve

  1. Brown the diced carrots in a little butter.

  2. Arrange the carrots on a platter and place the curried rice around them.

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. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  2. Rice + carrottop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,477 recipes

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

  3. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 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

Onion
Softens and sweetens as it cooks, forming the base flavour of the curry.
Butter
Carries the onion's flavour and browns the carrots, adding richness and colour.
Curry powder
Supplies the spiced aroma that defines the dish.
Rice
Absorbs liquid as it cooks, becoming tender to form the bed for the carrots.
Carrots
Caramelise lightly when browned, adding mild sweetness and colour.

The step that matters

Brown the diced carrots in a little butter. Browning needs a hot pan and enough space so the carrots caramelise rather than steam. Crowding the pan or using too little heat leaves them pale and soft instead of lightly golden and sweet.

Swap the carrot

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter, 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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