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Curry of Cold Meat

A curry made with cold meat, onion, butter, flour, curry powder, stock, apple, lemon juice, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Curry of Cold Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a pan over medium heat.

  2. Fry the onion until nearly cooked but not browned.

  3. Add the curry powder and fry for a few more minutes.

  4. Stir in the lemon juice, then add the flour and mix well.

  5. Pour in the stock and add the chopped apple; stir until boiling.

  6. Boil for about five minutes, then add the cold meat.

Simmer and serve

  1. Simmer gently for 45 minutes.

  2. Add salt to taste and 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.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

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

  3. Butter + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

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

Cold meat
Provides the main body of the dish and absorbs the curry flavour as it simmers.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce as it cooks.
Curry powder
Supplies the dominant spice aroma and warm flavour of the dish.
Onion
Builds a sweet, savoury base for the sauce when cooked gently.
Apple
Adds a little natural sweetness that softens the sharpness of the curry spices.

The step that matters

Stir in the flour before adding the stock. Flour must be mixed evenly into the fat and spices so it does not form lumps when liquid is added. Stirring constantly as the stock goes in helps the starch disperse and thicken the sauce smoothly.

Swap the apple

The recipe marks apple as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, onion, butter, flour, lemon):

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

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