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Currie of Rice

A curry sauce served over boiled Carolina rice.

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

Currie of Rice

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curry paste

  1. Fry the sliced onion in butter until soft.

  2. Pound the onion with salt, curry powder, and butter into a paste.

Combine and serve

  1. In a stewpan, combine the boiled rice with 2 ounces of butter.

  2. Mix the pounded paste with cream and stir into the rice over low heat.

  3. Heat thoroughly and serve.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

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

  5. Onion + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,827 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

Onion and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,827 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

Carolina rice
Forms the bulk of the dish, absorbing the butter, cream and curry flavour as it is stirred.
Butter
Carries fat-soluble curry flavour and adds richness to both the paste and the rice.
Curry powder
Supplies the aromatic spice flavour that defines the dish.
Onion
Softens into the paste, adding body and sweetness to the curry.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the paste so it blends into the rice.

The step that matters

Stir the paste into the rice over low heat. Gentle heat lets the cream and butter combine with the rice without scorching or drying it. Strong heat can split the cream and toast the spices unevenly, so the sauce turns grainy or bitter.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, rice, cream. 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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