Name: Vegetables, Curry of
Ingredients: ½ pound French beans, chopped; 1 onion, chopped; 1 apple, chopped; 2 ounces chopped ham; 1 small chili, chopped; 1 tablespoon curry powder; ¼ pint coconut milk; 2 cardamom pods

Why it works: Coconut and cardamom match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 214 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Vegetables, Curry of

Ingredients

Directions

Combine and cook

Combine all ingredients in a stewpan.
Cook slowly for 1 hour.

Thicken and serve

Thicken with a little grated coconut and milk before serving.

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.

Coconut + cardamomtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together214 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Beans + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,242 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beans + cardamomtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together84 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Beans + coconuttop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together176 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).
Coconut + milktop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,648 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

French beans: Provide the main vegetable bulk and tender texture once cooked slowly.
Onion: Softens during slow cooking and adds sweetness and body to the sauce.
Apple: Breaks down as it cooks, adding sweetness and softening the curry's sharpness.
Ham: Adds savoury flavour and some fat to the dish.
Curry powder: Supplies the main spiced aroma and flavour of the curry.
Coconut milk: Adds richness, fat and a creamy body to the liquid.

The step that matters

Cook slowly for 1 hour. Gentle heat lets the vegetables soften and the spices blend without the coconut milk scorching or separating. Fast, high heat can burn the base and make the sauce grainy.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, onion, ham, coconut, milk, cardamom):

Limefits better
Vanillafits better
Mangofits better
Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, onion, ham, coconut, milk, cardamom. 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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Vegetables, Curry of