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Vegetable Curry

A mixed vegetable curry simmered in butter and curry powder, finished with cream or gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cauliflower and cucumber match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 584 recipes. Both carry 2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Vegetable Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mince or slice the vegetables.

  2. Melt the butter in a stew pan.

Cook the curry

  1. Toss the vegetables in curry powder.

  2. Cook the vegetables in the butter until half cooked.

  3. Add enough cream or gravy mixed with curry powder to cover the vegetables.

  4. Stew until tender.

  5. Stir in salt.

Serve

  1. Serve with boiled rice on a separate dish.

  2. Add lemon juice if desired.

  3. Add mashed potatoes if desired.

  4. Add fried onions if desired.

  5. Add an apple if desired.

  6. Include shrimp or prawns if preferred.

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. Cauliflower + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together584 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Cauliflower + cabbagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Cauliflower + beanstop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together290 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Cauliflower + peastop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together313 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Cucumber + beanstop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together602 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

Fresh butter
Carries the curry flavour and adds richness while the vegetables first cook.
Mixed vegetables
Make up the bulk of the dish and provide its texture once stewed until tender.
Curry powder
Supplies the spiced aroma and colour that define the dish.
Cream or gravy
Provides moisture and a sauce that coats the vegetables and mellows the spices.

The step that matters

Cook the vegetables in the butter until half cooked. Vegetables differ in density, so stopping at half cooked before stewing lets firm pieces finish softening in the sauce without the softer ones turning to mush.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, celery, cauliflower, cabbage, cucumber, peas, beans):

  1. Lettucefits better
  2. Broccolifits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, celery, cauliflower, cabbage, cucumber, peas, beans. 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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