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Curry Sauce

A sauce made with butter, onion, parsley, ham, flour, curry powder, white broth, egg yolks, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Curry Sauce

Why it works: Onion and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 25,843 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Curry Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce base

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over low heat.

  2. Add the chopped onion, parsley, and ham; cook until the onion is soft.

  3. Stir in the flour and curry powder until well mixed.

  4. Gradually add the white broth and bring to a boil; cook for 15 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve and return to the heat.

  2. Mix in the egg yolks and additional butter without boiling.

  3. Serve warm.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · 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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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 carries the curry flavour through the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the broth into a smooth, coating sauce as it cooks.
Curry powder
Provides the main spiced aroma and flavour of the sauce.
White broth
Forms the liquid base of the sauce.
Egg yolks
Enrich the sauce and add body when stirred in off the boil.

The step that matters

Mix in the egg yolks without boiling. Egg yolks begin to set and can curdle or scramble if the sauce gets too hot, leaving the sauce grainy. Keeping it below boiling keeps it smooth and creamy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, parsley, ham, flour, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, parsley, ham, flour, egg. 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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