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Beef, Curried

A slow‑cooked beef curry served with rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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

Prepare the beef

  1. Cut the beef into slices about 1 inch thick and 1 inch square.

  2. Melt the butter in a stewpan and fry the meat quickly and lightly.

  3. Remove the meat to a plate, then add the onion, flour, and curry powder to the pan and fry gently for 10 minutes.

Make the curry

  1. Add the stock, curry paste, apple slices, and salt to taste, then bring to a boil.

  2. Return the meat to the pan, cover closely, and cook gently for 1½ hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Boil the rice, then drain and dry thoroughly.

  2. Once the meat is done, remove it to a hot dish, season the sauce to taste, add the lemon juice, and strain the sauce over the meat.

  3. Serve the rice separately.

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. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

  3. Beef + ricetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,265 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Lemon + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

Beef
Lean, tender cuts become juicy and soft when simmered gently in the sauce.
Onions
Softened and cooked down, they add sweetness and body to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the fat and curry powder into a smooth, body-giving base for the sauce.
Curry powder
Blooming its spices in fat releases aroma and gives the dish its characteristic flavour.
Sour apple
Its tartness adds acidity that balances the richness of the sauce.
Butter
Fat for frying that adds richness and helps brown the meat.

The step that matters

Simmering the meat gently with the lid on. Cooking too hard toughens muscle proteins and dries the meat, while a gentle, covered simmer lets collagen break down so the beef turns tender in the sauce.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, flour, onion, lemon, rice. 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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