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Indian Curry

A creamy curry sauce made with butter, flour, gravy, curry powder, milk, cream, and port wine, seasoned with salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Indian Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in the flour and mix until smooth.

  3. Slowly add the warm gravy while stirring.

  4. Mix the curry powder with the cold milk or gravy, then add to the saucepan.

  5. Stir in the cream and cook until thick and smooth.

  6. Season to taste, then add the port wine just before removing from heat.

Serve

  1. Serve immediately over meat or fish, accompanied by boiled rice and chutney.

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

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + port winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,499 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Butter
Enriches the roux and adds fat for a smooth, rich base.
Flour
Thickens the sauce when cooked with butter, giving body and a smooth texture.
Curry powder
Provides the main spiced aroma and flavour of the sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, softening the sauce's flavour and texture.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour when stirred in at the end.

The step that matters

Add the cold milk or gravy to the curry powder before adding it to the saucepan. Mixing the curry powder into a cold liquid first disperses it evenly and prevents lumps and scorching, so the spice blends smoothly into the hot sauce.

“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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