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Curry of Veal

A veal curry simmered with onions, curry powder, and roux, served over rice or pasta.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,433 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Curry of Veal

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Cut the veal breast into even-sized pieces, removing thick bones.

  2. Season the veal with salt and pepper.

  3. Fry the veal in clarified butter until lightly colored.

Make the curry sauce

  1. Remove the veal and fry thinly sliced onions in the same butter.

  2. Add flour to the onions to form a roux.

  3. Add curry powder to the roux to taste.

  4. Bring the mixture to a boil and skim.

  5. Simmer the mixture for 30 minutes until the onions are cooked.

  6. Rub the onion mixture onto the veal pieces.

  7. Simmer the veal until the meat is done.

Serve

  1. Serve the veal within a border of rice, risotto, macaroni, spaghetti, or noodles.

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. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Pepper + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Breast of veal
Provides the meat that becomes tender during the long simmer.
Clarified butter
Fat for frying that browns the veal and onions with a rich flavor.
Onions
Thinned into the sauce, adding sweetness and body as they cook down.
Flour
Forms a roux with the butter that thickens the curry sauce.
Curry powder
Supplies the spice aroma that defines the dish's flavor.

The step that matters

Making the roux. Flour must be cooked in the butter and onions until it loses its raw taste and thickens evenly. Adding liquid too early or undercooking the flour leaves lumps and a floury flavor in the sauce.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pepper, butter, flour, rice):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pepper, butter, flour, rice. 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.

More veal curry recipes

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