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Curry of Veal

A veal curry simmered with butter, flour, curry spices, apple, onions, and stock, served over rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Curry of Veal

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Cut the veal into pieces about 1 inch square.

  2. Fry the veal in hot butter until lightly browned.

  3. Remove the meat to a plate.

Make the curry sauce

  1. In the same pan, sprinkle in the flour and curry powder, add the onions, and fry gently for 10 minutes.

  2. Add the stock, curry paste, sliced apple, and salt; bring to a boil.

  3. Return the meat to the pan and cook gently for 2 to 2.5 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Boil the rice, then drain and dry well.

  2. Once the meat is tender, remove it to a hot dish.

  3. Season the sauce to taste, add the lemon juice, and strain it over the meat.

  4. Serve the rice separately.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Apple + ricetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,311 recipes

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

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

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

Butter and flour 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

Veal
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long, gentle simmering in the sauce.
Butter
Fat for frying the veal, building browned flavour on the meat and pan.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the fat and onion juices.
Curry powder
Provides the main spiced aroma and flavour of the sauce, released by frying in fat.
Onions
Soften and sweeten as they fry gently, adding body to the sauce.
Sour apple
Adds acidity and fruitiness that balances the rich, spiced sauce.

The step that matters

Simmering the meat gently for 2 to 2.5 hours. Boiling vigorously toughens the muscle fibres in veal, while slow, gentle heat breaks down connective tissue into tender, moist meat. Keeping the liquid at a bare simmer matters most for this.

Swap the apple

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

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

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