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Hussanee Beef Curry

A beef curry with meat on skewers simmered in ghee and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Turmeric and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,776 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Hussanee Beef Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Thread the beef squares onto the pins, alternating with half an onion and a slice of ginger.

Cook

  1. Warm the ghee in a pan and brown the ground condiments.

  2. Add the meat sticks to the pan and brown them, stirring continuously.

  3. Pour in the oil and a little water, then simmer over low heat for nearly 2 hours.

  4. Serve in a curry dish without removing the sticks.

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. Turmeric + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Turmeric + garlictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,363 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Ginger + garlictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,402 recipes

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

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

Beef
Forms the main protein that becomes tender and rich during long simmering.
Ghee
Adds fat for browning the spices and carries their aroma through the dish.
Ground onions
Browns and thickens the sauce while adding savoury sweetness.
Turmeric
Gives the curry its yellow colour and a warm, earthy flavour.
Chilies
Adds heat that builds as the sauce simmers.

The step that matters

Browning the meat sticks. Stirring while the meat browns builds caramelised flavour on the surface and keeps the pieces from sticking or scorching in the pan before the long simmer.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, ghee, onion, turmeric, garlic):

  1. Cuminfits better
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Corianderfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, ghee, onion, turmeric, garlic. 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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