Name: Indian Curry and Curry Dishes
Ingredients: 1 cup good stock; hot butter for frying; small pieces of meat (cooked or raw); 1 small onion, finely chopped; 1 small shallot, finely chopped; curry powder or paste; rice (soaked in cold water for 3-4 hours)

Why it works: Onion and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,431 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Indian Curry and Curry Dishes

Ingredients

1 cup good stock
hot butter for frying
small pieces of meat (cooked or raw)
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 small shallot, finely chopped
curry powder or paste
rice (soaked in cold water for 3-4 hours)

Directions

Prepare

Fry the small pieces of meat in hot butter until lightly browned.
In a separate pan, fry the chopped onion and shallot until soft.

Make the curry

Add the fried onion and shallot to the browned meat in a shallow stewpan.
Pour in 1 cup of good stock and bring to a simmer.

Cook the rice

Prepare the rice by boiling it until cooked, then strain and fluff with a fork.

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.

Onion + shallottop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,431 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,433 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Shallot + ricetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together284 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Meat + ricetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,481 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Meat + shallottop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together484 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Meat: Provides the main protein, and browning it in butter adds savoury flavour to the curry.
Onion and shallot: Softened in fat, they build sweetness and body into the sauce base.
Curry powder or paste: Supplies the spice aroma that defines the dish.
Stock: Provides the liquid that carries the flavours and gently cooks the meat.

The step that matters

Browning the meat in hot butter. Searing meat in hot fat creates browned surfaces through the Maillard reaction, which adds deep savoury flavour. Crowding the pan or stopping too early leaves the meat grey and the sauce flat.

Swap the onion

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

Leekfits better
Chivefits better
Asparagusfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, meat, shallot, rice. 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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Meatballs37 recipes

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Indian Curry and Curry Dishes