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The King of Oude’s Curry

A curry made with butter, onions, and veal gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and onion 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 ↓

The King of Oude’s Curry

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the butter in a pan over medium heat.

  2. Chop the onions and add them to the melted butter.

  3. Sauté the onions until they are golden brown.

  4. Pour in the gravy and stir well to combine.

  5. Simmer the mixture for a few minutes to blend the flavors.

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. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Onion + vealtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,841 recipes

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

  3. Butter + vealtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,381 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh butter
Carries the onions and adds richness and flavour to the base.
Onions
Soften and turn golden as they sauté, adding sweetness and depth to the curry.
Gravy
Supplies the liquid and savoury body that the curry base is built on.

The step that matters

Sautéing the onions until golden brown. Onions cooked slowly until golden develop sweetness and deep flavour through browning. Stopping early leaves them sharp and pale, weakening the base.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Onionthe original
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Shallotfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, veal. 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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