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Vegetables, Curry of

A curry of mixed vegetables simmered with butter, flour, curry powder, tomatoes, and stock, served over rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Vegetables, Curry of

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Divide the cauliflower into small florets and dice the carrots, turnip, potatoes, onion, and celery.

  2. Boil the vegetables in separate pots according to their cooking times, draining them when about half cooked.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the flour and curry powder, and fry slowly for at least 10 minutes.

  2. Add the sliced tomatoes and stock, stirring until boiling, then simmer gently for 15 minutes.

  3. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve and return it to the saucepan.

Finish and serve

  1. Season to taste, add the lemon juice and cooked vegetables, and heat thoroughly.

  2. Serve in a border of nicely cooked rice.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Cauliflower + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together286 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 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

Butter
Fat that cooks with the flour to form a roux, giving the sauce body and richness.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the melted butter, giving it body and a smooth texture.
Curry powder
Provides the spiced aroma and flavour that defines the sauce; frying it in fat blooms its flavour.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and moisture to the sauce, balancing the rich roux and spices.
Stock
Supplies the liquid that turns the roux into a sauce and adds savoury depth.
Potatoes
Add starch and bulk, giving the vegetable mixture a soft, filling texture.

The step that matters

Fry the flour and curry powder slowly. Frying the flour in butter cooks out its raw taste and toasts the curry powder's spices in fat, so frying too briefly leaves the sauce floury and flat. Cooking it slowly over gentle heat avoids scorching while building flavour.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cauliflower, carrot, turnip, potato, onion, celery, butter):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Lentilsfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cauliflower, carrot, turnip, potato, onion, celery, 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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