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Indian Curry of Vegetables

A simmered vegetable curry made with butter, curry powder, tomatoes, onion, green pepper, and optional flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Indian Curry of Vegetables

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curry

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

  2. Add the diced vegetables and curry powder; simmer for a few minutes without browning.

  3. Stir in the tomatoes, grated onion, and green pepper.

  4. Fill the skillet with boiling water and cover.

  5. Let it stew gently until the vegetables are tender and the water reduces to one-third.

  6. If too thin, stir in flour to thicken.

Finish and serve

  1. Just before serving, stir in an additional tablespoon of butter.

  2. Serve hot in a shallow dish.

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. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  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

Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel, and carries the curry powder's aroma.
Curry powder
Provides the main spice aroma and flavour of the dish.
Diced vegetables
Form the body of the dish and soften into tender pieces during stewing.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and moisture that help build the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid if the curry is too thin.

The step that matters

Simmering the curry powder without browning. Gentle heat lets the curry powder bloom in the butter and release its aroma. Higher heat can scorch the spices and turn them bitter, and browning the vegetables changes their flavour.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Okrafits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

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