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An Indian Curry

A curry made with butter, onion, apple, cocoa-nut, lemon, stock, meat, and spices, served hot with rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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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 ↓

An Indian Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Start the base

  1. Melt the butter in an iron saucepan.

  2. Add the chopped onion and apple; fry for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Make the curry

  1. Mix the curry powder and rice flour with the cocoa-nut milk and lemon juice; add the stock.

  2. Pour this mixture into the saucepan and stir until boiling.

  3. Add the grated cocoa-nut, chutney, and meat; let simmer gently for 15 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Just before serving, stir in the cream and season with salt.

  2. Serve hot with rice on the side or around the dish.

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

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

  2. Lemon + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Rabbit + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together252 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Apple + cocoatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together52 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Cocoa + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together93 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice flour
Thickens the stock mixture into a smoother, more body-filled sauce as it heats.
Curry powder
Supplies the main spiced aroma and flavour of the dish.
Grated cocoa-nut
Adds richness, body and a mild sweetness to the sauce.
Apple
Softens during frying and adds gentle sweetness that balances the spices.
Cream
Adds fat for a rounder, richer texture in the finished sauce.
Cooked fowl, rabbit, or veal
Provides the protein and substance of the dish, warmed through in the sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring in the cream at the end. Cream can separate or turn grainy if it is boiled hard, so it is added just before serving, off the boil, to keep the sauce smooth and rich.

Swap the cocoa

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, onion, apple, lemon, rabbit, rice, flour):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Beansfits better
  4. Cocoathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, apple, lemon, rabbit, rice, 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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