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King of OUDe’s Curry

A curry made with butter, onions, veal gravy, curry powder, meat, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

King of OUDe’s Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter over low heat in a stew‑pan.

  2. Add the chopped onions and sauté until soft.

Simmer and finish

  1. Stir in the veal gravy, curry powder, and meat pieces.

  2. Cover and gently simmer for 2 hours.

  3. Add lemon juice to taste 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. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

  3. Butter + meattop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Onion + meattop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,364 recipes

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

  5. Veal + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,580 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

Butter
Carries fat that spreads the curry powder's flavour through the dish and adds richness.
Onions
Soften and sweeten as they cook, forming the aromatic base of the sauce.
Veal gravy
Adds liquid and savoury depth, keeping the sauce moist during simmering.
Curry powder
Supplies the main spice aroma and flavour of the dish.
Meat
Provides protein that becomes tender during slow simmering in the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens and balances the rich, spiced sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for 2 hours. Low, gentle heat lets the meat break down and turn tender without toughening. A hard boil would evaporate liquid too fast and can scorch the sauce on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Avocadofits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Grapefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, veal, meat. 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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