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Sauce

Curry Sauce

A savory sauce made with onions, parsley roots, celery, thyme, bay leaf, mace, flour, curry powder, and white stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Illustration of Curry SauceIllustration

Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 9,057 recipes mention both. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat, fish, shellfish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Also mentioned in the method: egg, fish, shellfish

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a pan, melt butter and slightly brown the onions, parsley roots, celery, thyme, bay leaf, and mace.

  2. Sprinkle in the flour and curry powder, cooking for a few minutes without letting it color.

  3. Gradually add the white stock, stirring to combine.

  4. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer gently for 45 minutes.

  5. Strain the sauce through a tammy to remove solids.

Finish and serve

  1. Heat the sauce again, skim off any grease, and keep warm in a bain-marie.

  2. Serve with fish, shellfish, poultry, or egg dishes.

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.

The picture is an illustration, not a photo of this recipe · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together6,805 recipes

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

  3. Celery + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,188 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Onion + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together18,506 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Thyme + macetop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,113 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Browned in butter to build a sweet, savory base for the sauce.
Flour
Cooked with the fat to thicken the sauce into a smooth body.
Curry powder
Adds the spiced, aromatic flavor that defines the sauce.
White stock
Forms the liquid of the sauce, carrying the flavors as it simmers.
Celery
Contributes aromatic vegetable flavor during browning and simmering.
Butter
Carries the browning of the vegetables and adds richness to the sauce.

The step that matters

Cooking the flour and curry powder. Cooking the flour with the fat and spices without letting it color removes raw starch taste and lets the thickener work smoothly. Browning it changes the flavor and color of the sauce, and adding stock too early can leave lumps.

Flavor stand-ins for the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, parsley, celery, thyme, flour, butter):

  1. Marjorambetter flavor fit
  2. Sagebetter flavor fit
  3. Tarragonbetter flavor fit
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, parsley, celery, thyme, flour, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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