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Potatoes, Curried

A creamy curried potato dish made with onions, butter, milk, stock, rice flour, curry powder, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Potatoes, Curried

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Chop and fry the onion in butter until pale yellow.

  2. Add milk and stock, then stir in rice flour.

  3. Boil and simmer until the onion is cooked.

Finish and serve

  1. Add diced potatoes, curry powder, salt, and lemon juice.

  2. Serve hot, ensuring the curry flavor is well infused.

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 + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Rice + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together851 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Onion
Softens and sweetens as it cooks, forming the flavor base of the sauce.
Butter
Fat that carries the curry flavor and helps the onion fry gently.
Milk
Adds richness and body to the sauce.
Rice flour
Thickens the liquid into a smooth sauce that coats the potatoes.
Cold potatoes
Provide bulk and a soft, starchy texture in the finished curry.
Curry powder
Supplies the spice aroma that defines the dish.

The step that matters

Simmer until the onion is fully cooked. Undercooked onion stays sharp and raw-tasting, while thorough cooking softens its sugars and makes the sauce mellow. Rice flour also needs enough simmering to lose its raw starchy taste and thicken properly.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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