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Madras Curry

A curry made with onions, curry powder, milk, apple, vinegar, butter, flour, stock, sugar, and salt, simmered slowly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Madras Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Peel and slice the onions thinly, then fry them in butter until they are a deep brown color, but not burnt.

  2. In a bowl, mix the curry powder and flour into a smooth paste with the milk, then pour this mixture over the fried onions.

  3. Add the stock or water, sugar, vinegar, and salt to the stewpan.

Simmer and serve

  1. Simmer gently on the side of the stove for 3.5 hours.

  2. If using cold meat or prawns, add them and boil slowly for 30 minutes.

  3. If using uncooked meat or poultry, flour and fry it until rich brown, then add it halfway through the cooking time for 2 hours of gentle stewing.

  4. Serve with boiled rice and a cut lemon.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Milk + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Onions
Frying to deep brown builds the rich, sweet, savory base of the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce and gives it body as it cooks with the milk and stock.
Curry powder
Provides the spice and aroma that defines the dish.
Milk
Mixed with the curry powder and flour to form a smooth paste and adds creaminess to the sauce.
Butter
Carries the onions' frying and adds richness and flavor.
Apple
Adds natural sweetness and body that softens during the long simmer.

The step that matters

Frying the onions to deep brown. Onions cooked until deep brown develop sweetness and savory depth through caramelization, but burnt onions turn bitter and spoil the whole curry. Watch closely and stop before they blacken.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, apple, vinegar, butter, flour, sugar):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, apple, vinegar, butter, flour, sugar. 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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