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Curry Soup

A stew of ox cheek, onions, herbs, rice, and curry powder simmered in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,433 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Curry Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the ox cheek meat well.

Make the soup

  1. In a stewpan, combine the meat, sliced onions, pot herbs, and water.

  2. Remove the scum frequently and strain the mixture.

  3. Add the soaked rice, curry powder, pepper, and salt.

  4. Stew for four hours.

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 + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Meat + ricetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,481 recipes

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

  5. Meat + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,364 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

Ox-cheek meat
Provides the main body and rich flavour of the broth as it stews.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth to the broth as they cook down.
Soaked rice
Thickens the soup as its starch releases during the long stew.
Curry powder
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour that permeates the broth.

The step that matters

Remove the scum frequently. Impurities that rise to the surface during simmering can make the broth cloudy and give it an off flavour. Skimming them regularly keeps the soup clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, rice, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, rice, pepper. 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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