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A Dry Currie

A dry currie is a spiced meat dish cooked with onions, apples, and greens, simmered in broth or water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,655 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

A Dry Currie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Rub the meat with curry powder, flour, and salt until it adheres.

  2. Melt butter in a deep saucepan over medium heat until it begins to color.

  3. Add the meat and brown it evenly, shaking the pan every minute.

Make the sauce

  1. Remove the meat and add minced onions and eschalots to the pan.

  2. Fry until softened, then add gravy, broth, or boiling water.

  3. Add the apple and shredded lettuce or cabbage, and stew until thick.

Simmer and serve

  1. Return the meat to the pan and simmer gently for 45 minutes to 1 hour.

  2. Optional: Add prawns, shrimps, or boiled lobster flesh to the sauce 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. Lettuce + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,655 recipes

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

  2. Onion + lettucetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 recipes

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

  3. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Flour + lettucetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,236 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Curry powder
Provides the main spiced flavour and aroma that defines the dish.
Flour
Coats the meat and helps thicken the sauce as it cooks.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and browns the meat for flavour.
Onions
Soften into the sauce, adding sweetness and body.
Apple
Adds acidity and sweetness that balance the curry spices.

The step that matters

Browning the meat evenly. Shaking the pan every minute helps the curry powder and flour toast on all sides without scorching in one spot. Uneven browning leaves bitter, burnt patches and a flat, dusty flavour in the finished sauce.

Swap the tomato

The recipe marks tomato as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, flour, butter, onion, apple, lettuce):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, flour, butter, onion, apple, lettuce. 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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