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Dry Curry

A dry beef curry simmered slowly with butter, onion, curry powder, gherkins, chutney, salt, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Dry Curry

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the butter in a stewpan.

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

  3. Cut the meat into small pieces and add to the pan, cooking together.

  4. Sprinkle the curry powder over the meat and stir for 5 minutes.

  5. Add the gherkins, chutney, and salt, then set over a very slow fire for about 1 hour until the meat is tender.

  6. Add the lemon juice just 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. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  2. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

  4. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Onion + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,646 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the main body of the dish, becoming tender during slow cooking.
Butter
Adds fat for frying the onion and carries the curry flavour into the meat.
Onion
Softens and sweetens as it fries, building the base flavour of the curry.
Curry powder
Supplies the spiced aroma and flavour that defines the dish.
Gherkins
Add a sharp, acidic tang that balances the richness of the meat.

The step that matters

Keep the heat very slow for the full hour. Beef is tough and needs long, gentle simmering so its connective tissue breaks down. High heat toughens the meat and can dry it out or scorch the butter and spices, so the meat stays dry and chewy rather than tender.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, onion. 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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