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Hussanee Curries, or Curries on Stick

Skewered beef curry cooked slowly in ghee and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Turmeric and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,776 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Hussanee Curries, or Curries on Stick

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the beef into small squares, not exceeding 1 inch.

  2. Skewer the beef alternately with half an onion and a slice of ginger on the silver or bamboo pins.

Cook

  1. Warm the ghee in a pan and brown the ground condiments.

  2. Add the skewers of meat to the pan and brown them, stirring the mixture.

  3. Pour in the tyre and a little water, then allow to simmer over low heat for nearly 2 hours.

  4. Serve on a curry dish without removing the skewers.

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. Turmeric + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Turmeric + garlictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,363 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Ginger + garlictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,402 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the main protein, which becomes tender during long, slow simmering.
Ghee
Carries the spices and browns the meat, adding richness and flavour.
Ground onions
Browns in the fat to build sweetness and savoury depth in the sauce.
Tyre ol dhve
Forms the liquid base that simmers the meat and carries the flavours.

The step that matters

Brown the ground condiments in the ghee. Frying ground spices and onions in fat releases their aromatic compounds and builds colour. If they scorch over high heat they turn bitter, so keep the heat moderate and stir.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ghee, onion, turmeric, garlic, beef):

  1. Cuminfits better
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Corianderfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against ghee, onion, turmeric, garlic, beef. 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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