Skip to main content
Main

Madras Curry

A mutton curry with fried onion powder, black pepper, caraway seeds, and curry powder simmered in broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Madras Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and brown

  1. Remove bones from the mutton pieces.

  2. Fry the mutton in its own fat until browned.

Stew and finish

  1. Stew the mutton for 2 hours in broth or water.

  2. Add the fried onion, black pepper, and salt to season.

  3. Five minutes before serving, mix in the curry powder and let it stew without boiling.

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

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

  2. Onion + carawaytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together301 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Pepper + carawaytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together291 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

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

  5. Mutton + oniontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,531 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton neck
Provides the main protein and fat, which become tender during long stewing.
Fried onion
Adds sweetness and body to the sauce as it breaks down into the stew.
Curry powder
Supplies the spiced aroma and flavour that defines the dish.
Caraway seeds
Adds a warm, aromatic note that complements the spices.

The step that matters

Mix in the curry powder without boiling. Curry powder's aromatic compounds are volatile and turn bitter or dull with prolonged high heat, so it is added late and the stew is kept below a boil.

Swap the caraway

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Cuminfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Carawaythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, onion, pepper. 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.

More madras curry recipes

Powder 3 See all 12 →

You might also like

Mutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesHaricot MuttonHaricot Mutton59 recipesMutton SoupMutton Soup56 recipesCurried MuttonCurried Mutton9 recipes