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 ↓
Indian Curry
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the meat
Cut the meat into neat pieces.
Make the curry
In a saucepan, melt the butter and sauté the garlic and onions until brown, then remove them.
Fry the meat in the same fat until browned, then drain and place in a separate saucepan.
Mix the curry powder, flour, and salt with enough water to make a smooth paste.
Add more water if needed, then bring the mixture to a boil in a separate pot.
Pour the gravy over the meat and simmer gently until tender.
Before serving, stir in the lemon juice.
Serve
Serve the rice in a separate dish and the gravy with the meat.
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.
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Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together29,058 recipes
Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
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Garlic + lemontop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,893 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,368 recipes
Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
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Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together8,150 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Meat
- Provides the main protein, which becomes tender during slow simmering in the gravy.
- Butter
- Carries flavor and browns the garlic, onions and meat, adding richness.
- Onions
- Soften and brown to add sweetness and savory depth to the gravy.
- Curry powder
- Supplies the main spice aroma and flavor of the dish.
- Flour
- Thickens the gravy so it coats the meat.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the finished curry.
The step that matters
Simmering the meat gently until tender. Boiling tough meat rapidly makes its proteins contract and toughen, while gentle simmering lets connective tissue break down slowly, so the meat becomes tender without drying out.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, butter, clove, garlic, onion, flour):
- Avocadofits better
- Coconutfits better
- Limefits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against meat, butter, clove, garlic, onion, flour. 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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