Skip to main content
Main

A Good Curry

A curry made with chops, onions, apples, tomatoes, potatoes, coconut, and curry powder, simmered with milk and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

A Good Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Trim the fat from the meat and fry lightly in the butter.

  2. Fry the sliced onion until soft.

  3. Sprinkle the curry powder and flour over the onion.

Make the sauce

  1. Add the milk and stock or gravy, and stir until it boils.

Simmer

  1. Add the chops, vegetables, and apple, then simmer gently for 1½ hours.

  2. Stir in the coconut and salt to taste, and simmer for another 30 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Squeeze in a few drops of lemon juice just before serving.

  2. Serve with rice and garnish with parsley, pickled beetroot, or tomato.

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 + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 recipes

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

  3. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,592 recipes

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

  5. Potato + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells when heated in the liquid.
Curry powder
Gives the dish its main spiced aroma and flavour once fried in fat.
Onion
Softens and turns sweet as it cooks, forming the base of the sauce.
Milk
Adds richness and a creamy body to the sauce.
Potato
Breaks down slightly during simmering, adding body to the sauce.
Desiccated coconut
Adds fat, a mild sweetness and a soft texture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring the liquid in as it comes to the boil. Flour mixed into hot fat and then liquid can clump if the liquid is added without stirring. Constant stirring while the sauce heats lets the starch disperse and swell evenly, giving a smooth, thickened sauce.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, onion, tomato, potato, lemon, sugar, flour):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, onion, tomato, potato, lemon, sugar, flour. 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.

You might also like

Meatless Tomato SoupMeatless Tomato Soup23 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesPotato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipes