Name: Curry Made of Cold Meat
Ingredients: ½ lb Patna rice, boiled; Any kind of meat or fish, cut into small pieces; 1 oz butter; 1 small onion, chopped; ½ pint stock; ½ an apple, chopped; 2 teaspoons curry powder; 2 teaspoons flour

Why it works: Rice and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,433 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Curry Made of Cold Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

Heat the butter in a pan until very hot.
Add the flour and cook until well browned.
Stir in the onion, apple, curry powder, and stock.
Simmer gently for 20 minutes.

Finish and serve

Add the meat and heat thoroughly without boiling.
Serve on a platter with a border of 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.

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.

Rice + oniontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,433 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Rice + meattop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,481 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,311 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + appletop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,706 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Flour: Browned with the butter, it thickens the sauce and adds a toasted, nutty flavour.
Curry powder: Supplies the spice and aroma that define the dish's flavour.
Onion: Softens during simmering and adds savoury sweetness to the base.
Apple: Breaks down while simmering, adding gentle sweetness and body to the sauce.
Meat or fish: Provides the protein and main substance of the dish.

The step that matters

Add the meat and heat thoroughly without boiling. Boiling toughens meat and fish proteins and can make them dry and rubbery. Gentle heat warms the pieces through while keeping them tender and moist.

Swap the apple

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

Avocadofits better
Coconutfits better
Raisinfits better
Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, meat, butter, onion, flour. 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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Curry Made of Cold Meat