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Dry Curry

A dry curry made with cold meat, onion, butter, curry powder, milk or cream, salt, and pepper.

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

Dry Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim off the skin and gristle from the cold meat.

  2. Cut the meat into small slices.

  3. Finely shred the onion.

Cook the curry

  1. In a clean stewpan, melt the butter and fry the shredded onion until browned.

  2. Add the meat and stir with a wooden spoon until warmed through.

  3. Sprinkle curry powder over the meat. Season with salt and pepper.

  4. Add enough milk or cream to moisten the curry.

  5. Stir until the curry is dry and serve with 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.

  1. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cold meat (fowl or rabbit)
Provides the main protein, which is warmed through and flavoured in the curry.
Butter
Fat that fries the onion and carries the curry flavour through the dish.
Onion
Browns in the butter to add sweetness and savoury depth to the curry.
Milk or cream
Adds moisture so the curry coats the meat before it is cooked dry.

The step that matters

Stir until the curry is dry. Milk or cream must be cooked off gently so the meat is moist but not soupy. Stirring over heat evaporates the liquid and lets the curry powder bloom in the fat.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, butter, milk, pepper. 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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