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Veal, Curried.

A dish of sliced veal cooked with onions, apples, curry powder, flour, broth, lemon juice, and served with rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Veal, Curried.

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the onions and apples, and fry them in a little butter.

  2. Remove the onions and apples, then cut the veal into neat cutlets and fry until pale brown.

Make the curry

  1. Add the curry powder and flour, then stir in the onions, apples, and a little broth or water.

  2. Stew gently until everything is tender.

  3. Stir in the lemon juice and serve with boiled rice.

  4. Garnish with pickles, capsicums, and gherkins if desired.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

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

  3. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

Cold roast veal
Provides the main protein, which is cut into cutlets and browned before stewing.
Onions
Soften and sweeten as they cook, forming the base of the curry sauce.
Apples
Break down slightly during stewing, adding sweetness that balances the curry spice.
Curry powder
Supplies the spiced aroma and flavour that defines the dish.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a light sauce that coats the meat.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, spiced sauce just before serving.

The step that matters

Browning the veal before stewing. Frying the cutlets until pale brown develops savoury flavour through browning reactions, which the gentle stew then carries into the sauce. Skipping it leaves the meat tasting flat.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, onion, flour, lemon, butter. 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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