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Soup

Curry Sauce

A sauce made with butter, coconut, flour, curry powder, stock, chutney, apple, onion, lemon, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Curry Sauce

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 ↓

Curry Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the coconut in the stock.

Make the sauce

  1. Fry the chopped onion and apple in the butter with the curry powder for 20 minutes.

  2. Add the flour and gradually stir in the strained stock.

  3. Stir until boiling, then simmer for 20 minutes.

  4. Add chutney, lemon juice, and season to taste if necessary.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

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

  3. Butter + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

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

  4. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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
Carries the frying of the onion and apple and gives the sauce richness.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce as it cooks.
Curry powder
Supplies the main spice flavour, released by frying in fat.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and body as it softens in the butter.
Apple
Adds mild sweetness and softens into the sauce as it cooks.
Coconut (in the method)
Adds sweet, nutty flavour and aroma when soaked in the stock.

The step that matters

Frying the curry powder with the onion and apple. Curry powder must be fried gently in fat so its aromatic compounds bloom; if it scorches, the sauce tastes bitter. Stirring keeps it from catching.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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