Name: Cold Meat or Fresh Meat Mince Curry
Ingredients: Currystuffs as per recipe No. 26; 1 tablespoon ghee; 1 minced onion; 1 lb minced meat (cold or fresh); Salt to taste; ½ cup water

Why it works: Onion and meat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,364 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Cold Meat or Fresh Meat Mince Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Heat the ghee in a pan and brown the minced onion.
Add the minced meat and stir well.
Incorporate the ground currystuffs and salt, then stir and fry well.
Pour in about ½ cup of water.
If using cold meat, cook for only a few minutes.
If using fresh meat, fry well and add more water.

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.

Onion + meattop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,364 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Ghee + meattop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together406 recipes
Ghee + oniontop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,310 recipes