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Indian Curry

A stew of lean steak, onions, apple, and curry powder, finished with milk and served with rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,226 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Indian Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the onions and fry them in butter until golden brown.

  2. Add the chopped apple, curry powder, vinegar or lemon juice, and cut the meat into small squares.

Cook and serve

  1. Stew the mixture for 1½ hours.

  2. Just before serving, mix in 1 tablespoon of milk.

  3. Serve with 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.

  1. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

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

  3. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Vinegar + appletop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,884 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  5. Onion + appletop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,206 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

Onions
Fry to golden brown, building sweetness and savory depth as the base of the curry.
Lean steak
Provides the main protein, which turns tender during the long stew.
Apple
Adds natural sweetness that balances the curry powder's heat.
Vinegar or lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, slow-cooked flavors.
Butter
Carries the onions' browning and adds richness to the sauce.

The step that matters

Frying the onions until golden brown. Onions cooked slowly until browned develop sweetness and deep flavor through caramelization, which forms the base of the whole curry. Pale or undercooked onions leave the sauce tasting flat and sharp.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Plumfits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, vinegar, 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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