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Vegetable Curry

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Cauliflower and cucumber match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 584 recipes. Both carry 2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Vegetable Curry

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mince or slice the vegetables.

  2. Melt the butter in a stewpan.

  3. Toss the vegetables in curry powder and cook in the butter until half cooked.

  4. Add enough cream or gravy mixed with curry powder to cover the vegetables and stew until tender.

  5. Season with salt and serve with boiled rice on a separate dish.

  6. Stir in lemon juice for added flavor, if desired.

  7. Optionally, add mashed potatoes, fried onions, or an apple to the curry sauce.

  8. Shrimps or prawns can also be added if preferred.

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. Cauliflower + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together584 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Cauliflower + cabbagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Beans + spinachtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together365 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Cauliflower + beanstop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together290 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Cauliflower + spinachtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together117 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, cauliflower, cabbage, cucumber, peas, beans, spinach):

  1. Lettucefits better
  2. Broccolifits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, cauliflower, cabbage, cucumber, peas, beans, spinach. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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