Name: Curry of Cold Meat
Ingredients: ½ pound scraps of meat, cut into dice or small slices; 1 large onion, peeled and sliced; 1 small apple, or a few gooseberries, rhubarb stalks, or 1 tomato; ½ pint common stock (or liquor from boiled meat or vegetables); 1 teaspoon curry powder; 1 ounce dripping (or fat); ½ ounce browned flour (or ground rice for white meat); Salt to taste; Pepper to taste

Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Curry of Cold Meat

Ingredients

½ pound scraps of meat, cut into dice or small slices
1 large onion, peeled and sliced
1 small apple, or a few gooseberries, rhubarb stalks, or 1 tomato
½ pint common stock (or liquor from boiled meat or vegetables)
1 teaspoon curry powder
1 ounce dripping (or fat)
½ ounce browned flour (or ground rice for white meat)
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste

Directions

Make the curry base

Heat the dripping in a pan until hot.
Chop the onion and fry it in the hot fat until browned.
Add the chopped apple or substitutes and stir for a few minutes.
Mix in the curry powder, flour, and stock, stirring until it boils.
Skim off any fat and cook until the onion is tender.

Finish and serve

Add salt and pepper to taste.
Stir in the meat and keep it below boiling point for 20 minutes.
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.

Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Meat + oniontop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,364 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together32,460 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Apple + peppertop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,026 recipes

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

Onion: Softens and browns in the fat, building sweetness and depth for the sauce.
Browned flour: Thickens the stock into a sauce and adds a toasted, nutty flavour.
Apple: Adds mild sweetness and acidity that balances the curry spices.
Curry powder: Provides the main spiced aroma and flavour of the dish.
Stock: Forms the liquid base of the sauce and carries the flavours.

The step that matters

Keep the meat below boiling point. Boiling toughens meat proteins and makes them dry and stringy, so the meat should simmer gently once it is added to the sauce.

Swap the apple

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

Avocadofits better
Limefits better
Lemonfits better
Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, onion, flour, pepper. 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 of Cold Meat