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Preserve

Curry

A curry made with cold meat, clarified dripping, apple, onion, curry powder, paste, flour, lemon juice, served over boiled rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Curry

Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Finely chop the onion and apple.

  2. Slice the cold meat into neat pieces.

  3. Heat the clarified dripping in a small saucepan.

Make the curry

  1. Add the onion and fry until brown.

  2. Strain the onion out.

  3. Return the dripping to the saucepan.

  4. Add curry powder, curry paste, flour, chopped apple, and salt.

  5. Gradually stir in ½ pint of cold water.

  6. Bring to a boil.

  7. Simmer uncovered for 30 minutes.

  8. Add the meat and heat through.

  9. Stir in lemon juice without boiling again.

Serve

  1. Serve with boiled rice.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold meat
Provides the main protein, which is gently reheated in the sauce.
Clarified dripping
Fat that fries the onion and carries the curry flavours.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the liquid.
Curry powder
Supplies the warm, spiced flavour that defines the dish.
Apple
Adds mild sweetness and body to the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the sauce.

The step that matters

Gradually stir in the cold water. Flour mixed into hot fat clumps easily. Adding cold liquid slowly while stirring lets the starch disperse evenly, so the sauce thickens smooth instead of lumpy.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, onion, flour, lemon, rice, pepper):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, onion, flour, lemon, rice, 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.

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