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Madras Curry

A curry with onions, butter, curry powder, cornflour, stock, meat, and lemon juice, served with boiled rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 42,912 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Madras Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Fry the sliced onions in butter over medium heat until light golden.

  2. Mix curry powder and cornflour in the pan with the onions until smooth.

  3. Add the stock and stir to combine.

Cook and serve

  1. Add the meat pieces to the pan and let them simmer gently for 1 hour.

  2. Before serving, squeeze in the lemon juice.

  3. Serve on a dish with a border of boiled 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. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

  3. Butter + meattop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Onion + meattop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,364 recipes

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

  5. Onion + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,646 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Soften and turn golden, adding sweetness and a savory base to the sauce.
Butter
Carries the curry flavours and adds richness to the sauce.
Curry powder
Supplies the spice blend that gives the dish its characteristic flavour.
Cornflour
Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce that clings to the meat.
Meat
Becomes tender through slow simmering, forming the body of the dish.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, spiced sauce.

The step that matters

Mixing curry powder and cornflour into the onions. Spices bloomed in fat release more flavour, but cornflour added to hot liquid can clump. Stirring until smooth before adding stock keeps the sauce even.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Grapefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter, meat. 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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