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Indian Curry

A meat curry made with onion, curry powder, treacle, gravy, flour, milk, and optional coconut, served with rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and coconut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,063 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Indian Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curry

  1. Brown the onion in the dripping with the curry powder.

  2. Add the meat cut into small pieces, a pinch of salt, the treacle, and 1 cup of gravy. Stir occasionally and simmer for 30 minutes.

  3. Mix the flour into the milk gradually, then add to the pot. Simmer for another 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve with sliced lemon and rice. Optionally, add coconut.

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. Rice + coconuttop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,063 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

  3. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Milk + coconuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,648 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Lemon + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

What each ingredient does

Meat
Provides the main body and protein of the curry as it simmers until tender.
Curry powder
Supplies the spiced aroma and flavour that defines the dish when browned with onion.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a smoother, more coating sauce when mixed in with milk.
Treacle
Adds sweetness and depth, and helps balance the sharpness of the spices.

The step that matters

Adding the flour and milk. Flour added directly to hot liquid clumps. Mixing it gradually into the milk first creates a smooth slurry that thickens the sauce evenly.

Swap the coconut

The recipe marks coconut as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, onion, flour, milk, lemon, rice):

  1. Avocadofits about as well
  2. Coconutthe original
  3. Limefits less well
  4. Raisinfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, onion, flour, milk, 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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