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Coftha or Ball Curry with Cocoanut Milk

A curry of mutton or beef meatballs simmered in coconut milk with curry spices and fried onions.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and coconut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 458 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Coftha or Ball Curry with Cocoanut Milk

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meatballs

  1. Mince the meat.

  2. Mix the minced meat with half of the ground curry spices, ground cloves, and a little salt.

  3. Form the mixture into balls the size of walnuts.

  4. Set the balls aside.

Make the curry base

  1. Heat ghee in a pot.

  2. Fry the sliced onions until brown.

  3. Remove the onions and set aside.

  4. Add the remaining curry spices and more salt to the pot. Fry well.

  5. Pour in warm water or thin coconut milk. Cover. Boil for a few minutes.

Simmer and serve

  1. Gently place the meatballs into the boiling mixture. Cover. Simmer until the ghee appears on the surface.

  2. Remove from heat. Stir in thick coconut milk to make the gravy.

  3. Serve with fried onions sprinkled on top.

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. Clove + coconuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together458 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  3. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Onion + coconuttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,831 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  5. Clove + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton or beef
Forms the meatballs, providing the main body and rich savory flavor of the dish.
Coconut milk
Adds moisture and creamy richness, thickening the gravy when stirred in at the end.
Ghee
Fat that fries the spices and onions, carrying their aroma through the curry.
Onion
Fried until brown, adding sweetness and depth to the gravy and a garnish.

The step that matters

Gently place the meatballs into the boiling mixture. Raw minced meat is delicate; dropping balls into a violently boiling liquid can break them apart. Gentle placement lets them firm up and hold their shape while simmering.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, ghee, onion, coconut, milk):

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Cuminfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, ghee, onion, coconut, 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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