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Curry of Mutton

A mutton curry with rice, cooked in a butter‑flour sauce and baked with egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Curry of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Cook the rice

  1. Wash the rice.

  2. Add the rice to the boiling water and let it boil for 35 minutes.

  3. Drain the rice in a colander.

Make the curry

  1. Melt the butter in a frying pan.

  2. Add the flour to the melted butter and stir until smooth.

  3. Gradually add ½ pint of boiling water and let it boil once.

  4. Add the mutton, curry powder, and salt, and stir for 10 minutes.

Assemble and brown

  1. Heap the mixture in the center of a meat dish.

  2. Arrange the rice around it.

  3. Brush the top with beaten egg.

  4. Place in a 400°F (200°C) oven for a few minutes to brown.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Rice + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Mutton + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Mutton + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

Mutton
Provides the main meat and savory flavor of the dish.
Rice
Forms the starchy base that is served alongside the curry.
Curry powder
Supplies the spiced aroma and flavor that define the dish.
Flour
Thickens the butter and water into a smooth, binding sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the sauce and helps the flour cook smoothly.
Egg (in the method)
Beaten egg brushed on top sets and helps the surface brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Adding the flour to the melted butter. Stirring the flour into the butter until smooth cooks out raw flour taste and prevents lumps when the water is added. Adding liquid too quickly, before the roux is smooth, causes lumps that are hard to remove.

“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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