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A Dry Currie

A dry currie is a spiced meat stew with onions, apples, and lettuce or cabbage, simmered in gravy or broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,562 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

A Dry Currie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Rub the meat with curry powder, flour, and salt until it adheres.

  2. Melt butter in a deep saucepan over medium heat until it begins to color.

  3. Add the meat and brown it evenly, shaking the pan every minute.

  4. Remove the meat and add minced onions and eschalots to the pan.

Stew and finish

  1. Fry until softened, then add gravy, broth, or boiling water.

  2. Add the apple and shredded lettuce or cabbage, and stew until thick.

  3. Return the meat to the pan and simmer gently for 45 minutes to 1 hour.

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 + lettucetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 recipes

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

  2. Flour + lettucetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,236 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Apple + lettucetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together515 recipes

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

  5. Butter + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Flour and butter 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

Mutton or fowl
Provides the main protein; browning and slow simmering make it tender and flavorful.
Curry powder
Supplies the main spice flavor and aroma, toasted briefly in the butter.
Onions
Soften and sweeten as they fry, building the body of the sauce.
Apple
Adds acidity and mild sweetness that balance the spices.
Lettuce or cabbage
Breaks down during stewing, adding bulk and thickening the sauce.
Flour
Coats the meat and helps thicken the sauce as it cooks.

The step that matters

Browning the meat evenly. Shaking the pan keeps the coated meat from scorching or sticking unevenly, so it browns without burning. Browning builds savory flavor, and burnt curry powder turns bitter.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, flour, butter, onion, lettuce. 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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