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Curry of Cold Meat

A curry made with cold meat, onion, dripping, stock, flour, curry powder, and a sour fruit, served with rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Meat and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,364 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Curry of Cold Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the dripping in a saucepan.

  2. Peel and finely chop the onion, then fry until golden brown.

  3. Drain off the fat, add flour and curry powder, and gradually stir in the stock.

  4. Bring to a boil, then simmer gently for 10 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Cut the meat into bite-sized pieces, peel, core, and chop the apple, then add both to the saucepan.

  2. Let it simmer for 15 minutes, season to taste, and add chutney if desired.

  3. Serve on a hot dish with boiled rice arranged around the meat.

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

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

  2. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Onion + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,646 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Meat + lemontop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,817 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold meat
Provides the main protein, which is already cooked and only needs gentle heating in the sauce.
Onion
Softens and browns in the fat, building sweetness and savoury depth for the base of the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce that coats the meat.
Curry powder
Supplies the spiced aroma and flavour that define the dish.
Lemon or apple
Adds sourness and fruitiness that balance the richness and spice of the curry.

The step that matters

Gradually stirring in the stock. Adding liquid slowly to the flour and fat keeps the mixture smooth. Dumping it in at once can leave lumps of flour that are hard to remove later.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, onion, flour. 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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