Skip to main content
Main

A Common Indian Currie

A curry made with meat, curry powder, onions, and simmered until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

A Common Indian Currie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix curry powder, salt, and flour in a bowl.

  2. Cut the meat into thick small cutlets or squares and rub half of the mixed powder over it.

  3. Fry the sliced onions (and garlic or shallots if using) in butter until golden brown, then drain on a sieve.

  4. Add more butter to the pan and lightly fry the meat, draining excess fat.

Make the curry

  1. Place the meat in a clean stewpan, top with the fried onions, and pour in boiling water to almost cover the meat.

  2. Mix the remaining curry powder with a little broth or cold water, then add to the stewpan after the curry has simmered for a few minutes.

  3. Simmer gently until the meat is tender, about 1.25 to 2.5 hours depending on the type of meat.

  4. Optionally, add an acid apple or vegetables during cooking.

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 + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Garlic + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Clove + shallottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Flour + shallottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + shallottop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,431 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Meat
Its connective tissue softens during long simmering, making the curry tender.
Curry powder
Supplies the spice flavour that defines the dish, with part of it toasted in fat for depth.
Flour
Helps thicken the curry sauce as it cooks.
Onions
Break down during frying and simmering, adding sweetness and body to the sauce.
Butter
Carries the spices and gives the frying and browning of onions and meat richness.

The step that matters

Adding the remaining curry powder. Mixing it with liquid and adding it only after a short simmer lets the spices bloom in the sauce without scorching in the fat. Adding it too early in dry form can burn and taste bitter.

Swap the clove

The recipe marks clove as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, flour, onion, garlic, shallot, butter):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, flour, onion, garlic, shallot, butter. 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 indian curry recipes

Sauce 4East 3Powder 3Soup 3with Rice 3 See all 40 →

You might also like

Meat CroquettesMeat Croquettes52 recipesMeatballsMeatballs37 recipesMince MeatMince Meat37 recipesMeat CakesMeat Cakes35 recipes