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Curried Veal

Curried Veal is a veal dish simmered in a spiced coconut and curry sauce, served with rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Curried Veal

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a lined pan, melt the butter and fry the chopped onion until golden brown.

  2. Add the chopped apple, curry powder, coconut, salt, and curry paste.

  3. Fry gently for 20 minutes.

  4. Stir in the flour, then gradually add the stock and seasonings.

  5. Bring to a boil and simmer for 20 minutes.

Cook the veal

  1. Cut the veal into small pieces and add to the sauce.

  2. Simmer until the veal is tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Add a squeeze of lemon juice and a tablespoon of milk or cream.

  2. Adjust seasoning as needed.

  3. Serve on a dish with boiled rice on either side, garnished neatly.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Coconut + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,648 recipes

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

  3. Apple + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  4. Butter + coconuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Veal
Provides the main meat; simmering slowly in the sauce makes it tender.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce that coats the meat.
Butter
Fat for frying the onion, adding richness and flavour to the sauce.
Onion
Softens and sweetens as it browns, forming the base flavour of the sauce.
Apple
Adds subtle sweetness and body that balances the sharpness of curry spices.
Milk or cream
Adds richness and softens the sharp curry flavour at the end.

The step that matters

Frying the curry powder and paste gently. Curry spices release their aroma and lose raw, bitter edges when fried gently in fat. Rushing this over high heat can scorch them, leaving a burnt, bitter taste in the sauce.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, butter, apple, coconut, flour, lemon, milk):

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, apple, coconut, flour, lemon, milk. 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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