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Curried Beef

A beef stew cooked with butter, onions, curry powder, and milk, served with lemon and mashed potatoes or rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Curried Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curry

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the sliced onions and fry until light brown.

  3. Stir in the curry powder and mix well.

  4. Add the beef and pour in the milk.

  5. Let it simmer for 30 minutes, stirring constantly to prevent burning.

Serve

  1. Serve hot with sliced lemon and a wall of mashed potatoes or boiled rice around it.

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 + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  5. Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

What each ingredient does

Round beef
Provides the main protein, which becomes tender during the long simmer in liquid.
Curry powder
Supplies the spice blend that gives the dish its characteristic aroma and flavour.
Onions
Softened and browned in butter, they add sweetness and body to the sauce.
Milk
Adds liquid and richness, and its proteins mellow the sharpness of the spices.

The step that matters

Simmering with constant stirring. Milk proteins and sugars can scorch on the bottom of the pan at a simmer, so frequent stirring keeps heat even and prevents a burnt taste.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, onion, beef, milk, potato):

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, beef, milk, potato. 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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