Skip to main content
Main

Oude Curry

A curry made with cold meat, onion, butter, gravy, curry powder, and lemon juice, simmered for two hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Onion and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 42,912 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Oude Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the cold meat into convenient-sized pieces.

  2. Slice the onion thinly and fry in butter until soft.

Make the sauce

  1. Pour the gravy over the onions.

  2. Mix the curry powder smoothly with the sauce.

Simmer and serve

  1. Add the pieces of meat and simmer gently for 2 hours.

  2. Before serving, stir in the lemon juice.

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

  3. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Meat + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,364 recipes

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

  5. Onion + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,646 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

Cold meat
Forms the body of the dish, becoming tender during gentle simmering.
Spanish onion
Softens and sweetens as it fries, forming the base of the sauce.
Butter
Carries the onion flavour and adds richness to the sauce.
Good gravy
Provides the liquid and savoury body that the meat simmers in.
Curry powder
Supplies the spice aroma and colour that define the dish.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, spiced sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for 2 hours. Cooked meat is already done, so the long gentle simmer is what softens it and lets it absorb the sauce. A rapid boil would toughen the meat and reduce the sauce too quickly.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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

More meat curry recipes

Cold 24 See all 3 →

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesMeat CroquettesMeat Croquettes52 recipesMeatballsMeatballs37 recipesMince MeatMince Meat37 recipes