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Beef Curry, Madras

A beef curry with onions, apple, curry paste, spices, stock, and brown sauce, simmered for two hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Ketchup and anchovy match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 479 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Beef Curry, Madras

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the onions into thin rings.

  2. Fry the onions in hot butter until golden brown, then remove and set aside.

  3. Cut the steak into pieces.

  4. Coat the steak with curry powder and spices.

Make the curry

  1. Add the steak to the butter and fry well.

  2. Add the chopped apple, curry paste, and stock along with half the lemon juice.

  3. Bring to a boil.

  4. Stir in the fried onions.

  5. Simmer for two hours, replenishing stock as needed.

  6. Pass the sauce through a sieve.

  7. Return the strained sauce to the pan with the meat.

  8. Add brown sauce, remaining lemon juice, and salt to taste.

  9. Heat through.

Serve

  1. Serve with plain rice or a special rice dish.

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. Ketchup + anchovytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together479 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  5. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Steak
Becomes tender during the long simmer and gives the curry its meaty body.
Onions
Soften and sweeten as they fry, adding depth and body to the sauce.
Curry paste
Supplies concentrated spice flavour that builds the curry's character.
Curry powder
Coats the meat and adds warm spice aroma to the dish.
Brown sauce
Adds savoury depth and colour to the finished sauce.
Apple
Adds subtle sweetness that balances the heat and sharpness of the spices.

The step that matters

Simmer for two hours, replenishing stock as needed. Beef becomes tender only through long, gentle simmering; boiling hard or letting the liquid reduce too far can toughen the meat and scorch the sauce, so keep it at a gentle simmer and top up stock.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, lemon, mushroom, ketchup, anchovy, pepper, nutmeg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, lemon, mushroom, ketchup, anchovy, pepper, nutmeg. 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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