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Mathee Bajee and Fennel Curry with Meat

A spicy curry of water spinach, fennel, and meat simmered with yogurt, ghee, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Coriander and lime match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,536 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Mathee Bajee and Fennel Curry with Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Heat ghee in a pan and brown half of the chopped onions.

  2. Add turmeric to the onions and mix well.

  3. Grind the green ginger, garlic, coriander leaves, and dried chillies together.

  4. Combine the ground mixture with the onions and turmeric.

Cook the meat

  1. Add the meat and yogurt, along with a little water, and let it simmer for 15 minutes.

  2. Stir the mixture continuously until the meat is browned.

Add the greens and finish

  1. Add the remaining onions, mathee bajee, fennel, and green chillies, and cook until everything is tender.

  2. Finish with lime juice before serving.

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. Coriander + limetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Ginger + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Ginger + coriandertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Turmeric + coriandertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,253 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Ghee
Fat that carries flavour and helps the onions brown well.
Onions
Sweetness and body as they brown, thickening the curry base.
Yogurt
Adds moisture and tang, and its mild acidity tenderises the meat.
Meat
Main protein; browning it builds savoury depth in the curry.
Mathee bajee (water spinach)
Leafy green that softens during cooking and adds freshness and bulk.
Fennel
Adds a faint aniseed aroma and tender, slightly sweet vegetable texture.

The step that matters

Stir the mixture continuously until the meat is browned. Yogurt can curdle or stick to the pan if the heat is too high or stirring stops, so keep the mixture moving until the meat browns evenly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ghee, yogurt, ginger, garlic, turmeric, coriander, lime):

  1. Broccolifits better
  2. Welsh onionfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ghee, yogurt, ginger, garlic, turmeric, coriander, lime. 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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