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Beef Curried

A stew of tinned beef, onions, apple, and curry powder simmered in butter and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beef Curried

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curry base

  1. Slice the onions and sauté them in the butter in a stewpan.

  2. Mix the flour and curry powder with a little water to form a smooth paste.

  3. Add the apple, peeled and sliced, along with the paste to the pan with some gravy.

  4. Simmer until the onions and apple are well cooked.

Finish and serve

  1. Cut the beef into small squares, add it to the pan with salt, and heat thoroughly.

  2. 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. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Apple + buttertop 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. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

Flour and butter 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
Soften and sweeten as they cook, forming the base of the sauce.
Curry powder
Provides the spiced, aromatic flavour that defines the dish.
Flour
Thickens the sauce when mixed into the paste and cooked.
Sour apple
Adds acidity and body that softens into the sauce as it simmers.
Tinned beef
Supplies the meat, which only needs heating through once added.
Butter
Carries the onions' cooking and adds richness to the base.

The step that matters

Simmer until the onions and apple are well cooked. Onions and apple must soften fully so the sauce becomes smooth and their raw sharpness and sweetness blend into the curry. Undercooked onions stay crunchy and taste harsh.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, flour, onion, 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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