Name: Curry of Mutton
Ingredients: 1 large onion, thinly sliced; 2 tablespoons butter; 2 tablespoons flour; 1 teaspoon curry powder; 1 teaspoon salt; ¼ teaspoon pepper; 2 cups stock; 2 pounds lean mutton, cut into 2-inch pieces; cooked rice for serving

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 of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curry

Fry the onion in butter until soft.
Mix in flour, curry powder, salt, and pepper.
Stir in the stock gradually.
Add the mutton pieces and simmer until tender.

Serve

Serve the meat on a hot platter with rice around it.

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 + ricetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,433 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + ricetop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,379 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together42,912 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton: Lean meat that becomes tender and flavourful as it simmers in the sauce.
Flour: Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce as it cooks with the butter.
Butter: Fat that softens the onion and carries the curry powder's aroma.
Onion: Sweetens and adds body to the sauce as it softens in butter.
Curry powder: Provides the spiced aroma that defines the dish.

The step that matters

Stir in the stock gradually. Adding liquid slowly while stirring lets the flour disperse evenly, so the sauce thickens smoothly without lumps.

Swap the onion

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

Leekfits better
Shallotfits better
Asparagusfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, pepper, mutton, 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.