Name: Plain Mutton Curry
Ingredients: ½ pound boiled mutton, cut into pieces; ¼ onion, chopped; 3 tablespoons oil or butter; ½ teaspoon curry powder; beef broth, gravy, or water (enough to make a thick sauce)

Why it works: Onion and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Plain Mutton Curry

Ingredients

½ pound boiled mutton, cut into pieces
¼ onion, chopped
3 tablespoons oil or butter
½ teaspoon curry powder
beef broth, gravy, or water (enough to make a thick sauce)

Directions

Heat the oil or butter in a pan and fry the chopped onion until soft.
Add the mutton pieces and toss for a few minutes.
Sprinkle the curry powder over the meat and add enough broth, gravy, or water to create a thick sauce.
Simmer gently for a few minutes and serve.

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.

Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,092 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Mutton + beeftop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,373 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together42,912 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Mutton + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,781 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + beeftop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,847 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Boiled mutton: Provides the main protein, and its texture softens and absorbs the sauce as it cooks.
Curry powder: Supplies the spice flavour that defines the dish, released by frying in fat.
Onion: Softens and sweetens as it fries, forming the flavour base of the sauce.
Broth, gravy, or water: Provides the liquid that becomes the thick sauce as it simmers.