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Jewish Curry

A spiced meat curry cooked with onions, vinegar, and ghee.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Garlic and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Jewish Curry

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Heat the ghee or oil in a pot over medium heat until it bubbles.

  2. Add the sliced onions and fry until light brown.

  3. Stir in the ground spices, meat, vinegar, and salt.

  4. Cover the pot and cook on low heat until the meat is tender.

  5. To keep the curry warm, place a few burning coals on the pot's lid.

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. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Coriander + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,253 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Coriander + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Turmeric + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Coriander + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,949 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton or beef
Provides the main protein, which becomes tender through slow cooking in liquid.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the curry a sharp, tangy edge.
Onion
Fried until light brown, it adds sweetness and savory depth to the base.
Ghee or salad oil
Carries the spices and fries the onions, adding richness and fat.

The step that matters

Cover the pot and cook on low heat until the meat is tender. Low, covered cooking keeps moisture in the pot and lets tough connective tissue in the meat break down slowly. High heat can toughen the meat and dry out the sauce.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (coriander, turmeric, pepper, garlic, ghee, vinegar, mutton):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits about as well
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against coriander, turmeric, pepper, garlic, ghee, vinegar, mutton. 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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