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A Drv Currie

A curry of fowl or veal cutlets, fried with onions and curry powder, then stewed in milk and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

A Drv Currie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Skin and cut the fowl into joints or take small cutlets from the neck of veal.

Fry

  1. Fry the minced onions in butter until golden, then drain them.

  2. Fry the fowl or veal, dusting it with curry powder and cayenne pepper.

Stew and finish

  1. Place the fried meat and onions in a stew pan with salt, milk, and water.

  2. Cover the pan and let it stew until the meat is tender.

  3. Ten minutes before serving, add lemon juice.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 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

Fowl or veal
Provides the main protein, which becomes tender through slow stewing.
Onions
Soften and turn golden when fried, adding sweetness and a savory base.
Butter
Carries the frying of onions and meat, adding richness and browning.
Curry powder
Supplies the aromatic spice blend that defines the dish's flavor.
Milk
Adds creaminess and body to the stewing liquid, mellowing the spices.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, spiced sauce when added near the end.

The step that matters

Stew until the meat is tender. Fowl and veal are tough cuts that need long, gentle, covered simmering to break down connective tissue. Stewing too hard or too briefly leaves the meat dry or chewy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, butter, pepper, milk, lemon):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, pepper, milk, lemon. 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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