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Vegetable Curry

A curry of mixed vegetables simmered in butter and curry powder, finished with cream or gravy and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Cauliflower and cucumber match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 584 recipes. Both carry 2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Vegetable Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mince or slice the vegetables.

  2. Melt the butter in a stew-pan.

Cook the curry

  1. Toss the vegetables in curry powder and cook in the butter until half cooked.

  2. Add enough cream or gravy mixed with curry powder to cover the vegetables and stew until tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Season with salt and serve with boiled rice on a separate dish.

  2. Stir in lemon juice for added flavor.

  3. Optionally, add mashed potatoes, fried onions, or an apple for extra richness.

  4. Shrimps or prawns can also be added if desired.

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. Cauliflower + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together584 recipes

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

  2. Cauliflower + cabbagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Beans + spinachtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together365 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Cauliflower + beanstop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together290 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Cauliflower + spinachtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together117 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh butter
Carries the curry powder's aroma and adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the dish.
Curry powder
Supplies the main spice aroma and flavor, which bloom when cooked in fat.
Cream or gravy
Forms the moist sauce that cooks the vegetables and carries the curry flavor.
Onions
Soften and turn sweeter as they cook, adding body to the curry's flavor base.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the richness of the sauce.

The step that matters

Cooking the vegetables in curry powder and butter until half cooked. Curry powder's aromatic compounds dissolve in fat and develop more fully when bloomed in butter. Stopping at half cooked lets the vegetables finish tender in the sauce without turning mushy.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, cauliflower, cabbage, cucumber, peas, beans, spinach):

  1. Lettucefits better
  2. Broccolifits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, cauliflower, cabbage, cucumber, peas, beans, spinach. 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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