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Dry Curry, No. 2

A buttery oyster curry with onions, apples, and cream, served with dry boiled rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Dry Curry, No. 2

serves four

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curry

  1. In a small stew-pan, brown the butter.

  2. Add the minced onions and apples, and brown them well without burning.

  3. Mix the curry powder and flour, then stir into the stew-pan constantly.

  4. Add the cream and stir until combined.

  5. Add the cleaned oysters and mix well, seasoning with salt to taste.

Prepare and serve

  1. An hour before serving, butter a round jelly mold and press the curry into it.

  2. Boil rice until dry, then fill four buttered tea-cups with it, pressing down to maintain shape.

  3. Serve the curry in the center of a dish with the rice around it, garnished with parsley.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Rice + parsleytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,762 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Onions
Browned to build sweetness and savory depth as the base of the curry.
Apples
Soften and add natural sweetness that balances the curry powder's heat.
Butter
Browns to add nutty aroma and carries the curry powder's flavor.
Flour
Thickens the curry so it holds together when pressed into a mold.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, mellowing the curry into a smooth sauce.
Pandore oysters
Provide the main seafood flavor and a tender, delicate texture.

The step that matters

Browning the onions and apples. Browning builds deep flavor through the Maillard reaction, but the sugars scorch quickly. Stir often over moderate heat, stopping once golden, so the base tastes rich rather than bitter.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, butter, flour, cream, oyster, rice, parsley):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter, flour, cream, oyster, rice, parsley. 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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