Skip to main content
Main

Curry of Cold Meat

A curry made with cold cooked meat, onions, apples or tomatoes, curry powder, vinegar, sugar, stock, milk, served over rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Curry of Cold Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curry

  1. Fry the chopped onion in butter until browned.

  2. Add sliced apples (or tomatoes), curry powder, vinegar, sugar, stock, and milk to the pan.

  3. Simmer the mixture for a few minutes.

  4. Add the cold meat and simmer for at least 1 hour until the meat is well flavored.

Serve

  1. Serve with hot boiled rice.

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

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

  3. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

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

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Onion
Browning in butter builds a savoury, sweet base for the sauce.
Green apples
Break down during simmering to add body and a mild fruity sweetness.
Curry powder
Supplies the spiced aroma and flavor that defines the dish.
Vinegar or lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the sweetness.
Cold cooked meat
Becomes tender and well flavored as it simmers in the sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer the meat for at least 1 hour. Cooked meat is already firm, so long gentle simmering in the spiced liquid is needed for it to absorb flavor and soften. Stopping early leaves the meat bland and tough.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, apple, vinegar, sugar, milk, meat):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, apple, vinegar, sugar, milk, meat. 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.

You might also like

Meat CroquettesMeat Croquettes52 recipesMeatballsMeatballs37 recipesMince MeatMince Meat37 recipesMeat CakesMeat Cakes35 recipes