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India Curry

A veal curry simmered with onions, curry powder, and water, served over boiled rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

India Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the curry

  1. Cut the veal into small pieces.

  2. Fry the onions in the butter until golden.

  3. Remove the onions from the pan.

  4. Add the veal and curry powder to the pan and stir well.

  5. Cover the meat with boiling water and cook until tender.

Cook the rice

  1. Wash 1 cup of rice in several waters, rubbing the grains to remove dirt.

  2. Combine the washed rice, 1½ cups of water, and 1 teaspoon of salt in a saucepan.

  3. Cover the saucepan and bring to a boil.

  4. Cook the rice for 20 minutes without stirring.

  5. After 20 minutes, place the saucepan on a tripod or ring.

  6. Cover the saucepan with cheesecloth.

  7. Let the rice cook for 1 hour.

Serve

  1. Serve the curry with a border of rice.

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 + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

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

  4. Veal + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,841 recipes

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

  5. Veal + ricetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,119 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Provides the main protein, which becomes tender through long simmering in liquid.
Butter or drippings
Carries the curry flavour and browns the onions for a richer base.
Curry powder
Supplies the spice blend that gives the dish its characteristic aroma and flavour.
Rice
Absorbs the cooking water and forms a soft, fluffy starch base for the curry.

The step that matters

Cook the rice without stirring. Stirring releases surface starch, making the rice gummy. Leaving it undisturbed lets the grains steam evenly and separate.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits about as well
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, rice. 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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