Name: Curry of Cold Meat
Ingredients: 1 large onion, chopped; 1 tablespoon butter or dripping; 2 green apples or 1 large quince (or 2-3 tomatoes); 1 tablespoon curry powder; 1 tablespoon vinegar or lemon juice; 2 teaspoons sugar; ½ cup stock; a little milk; cold cooked meat, cut into small pieces

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Curry of Cold Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curry

Fry the chopped onion in butter or dripping until browned.
Add sliced apples (or tomatoes), curry powder, vinegar, sugar, stock, and milk to the pan, then simmer the mixture for a few minutes.
Add the cold meat and simmer for at least 1 hour until the meat is well flavored.

Serve

Serve with hot boiled 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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Apple + milktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,104 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,226 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Butter + appletop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,706 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).

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

What each ingredient does

Onion: Browning in butter or dripping builds a savoury, sweet base for the curry.
Curry powder: Supplies the spice aroma and flavour that define the dish.
Green apples: Break down during simmering to add body and a mild sweet-tart fruitiness.
Vinegar or lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the sweetness.
Sugar: Balances the sharpness of the acid and spice for a rounded flavour.
Cold cooked meat: Gently simmering it in the sauce lets it absorb the curry flavours.

The step that matters

Simmering the meat for at least 1 hour. Cooked meat is already done, so the long gentle simmer is for flavour absorption, not cooking. Keeping the liquid at a gentle simmer rather than a hard boil helps the meat stay tender and the sauce from reducing too fast or scorching.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, apple, vinegar, sugar, milk, meat):

Capsicumfits better
Potatofits better
Mustardfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, apple, vinegar, sugar, milk, meat. 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.

Meat Croquettes52 recipes

Meatballs37 recipes

Mince Meat37 recipes

Meat Cakes35 recipes

Like knowing why a recipe works?

The free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.

Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.

Curry of Cold Meat