Skip to main content
Main

Calf's Head, Curried

A curry made from calf's head pieces simmered in butter, onions, curry powder, stock, and lemon juice, served with rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Onion and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,433 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Calf's Head, Curried

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curry sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Add the sliced onions and fry until lightly browned on both sides.

  3. Remove the onions and stir in the curry powder gradually until smooth.

  4. Add the stock and mix until the sauce is smooth.

  5. Return the calf's head and onions to the saucepan, and let it boil for 10 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Squeeze in the lemon juice just before serving.

  2. Serve in the center of a dish with boiled rice around it.

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. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Lemon + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's head
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender as it simmers in the sauce.
Butter
Carries the onion and curry flavour and adds richness to the sauce.
Onions
Fried until browned, they add sweetness and depth to the sauce.
Curry powder
Supplies the spiced aroma and flavour that define the dish.
Stock
Forms the liquid base of the sauce and carries the flavours through the dish.

The step that matters

Stirring the curry powder into the butter. Curry powder must be added gradually so it blends smoothly into the fat and liquid without lumps. Adding it all at once can leave clumps that stay in the sauce.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, onion, rice):

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, rice. 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

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesRice FrittersRice Fritters84 recipesSteamed RiceSteamed Rice48 recipesRice Griddle CakesRice Griddle Cakes28 recipes