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Vegetable Curry

A simple curry with carrots, turnips, potatoes, peas, onion, butter, stock, curry powder, lemon juice, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Vegetable Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curry base

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

  2. Add the sliced onion and fry for a few minutes until softened.

  3. Stir in the curry powder and stock.

  4. Add the salt and lemon juice.

  5. Bring to a boil.

  6. Cook for about 5 minutes.

Prepare and add the vegetables

  1. Cut carrots, turnips, and potatoes into small pieces.

  2. Boil them separately.

  3. Add the cooked vegetables and peas to the curry.

  4. Warm for about 5 minutes.

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. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat and richness to the sauce and helps the onion soften and brown gently.
Onion
Softens into the base and adds sweetness and body to the curry.
Curry powder
Provides the main spice flavour and aroma of the dish.
Potatoes
Hold their shape when cooked and add starch that thickens the curry slightly.
Carrots
Add sweetness and a firm texture that holds up during simmering.

The step that matters

Boiling the vegetables separately. Cooking the root vegetables apart from the curry lets each reach tenderness without overcooking the sauce or turning the peas mushy. Cutting them into small, even pieces helps them cook at the same rate.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, peas, potato, onion, butter):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, peas, potato, onion, butter. 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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