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Quorema Curry, Plain

A mutton curry made with ghee, yogurt, and a blend of spices, simmered until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Quorema Curry, Plain

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the mutton into 1½-inch pieces.

  2. Warm the ghee in a pan and fry the sliced onions until golden, then set aside.

Make the curry

  1. Fry all the ground spices until fragrant and browned.

  2. Add the mutton and salt to the pan, browning the meat thoroughly.

  3. Stir in the yogurt, hot spices, peppercorns, bay leaves, lemongrass, water, and chopped fried onions.

  4. Simmer until the mutton is tender and the flavors meld.

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. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Coriander + lemon grasstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together377 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Coriander + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Lemon grass + gingertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together364 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Coriander + cinnamontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,635 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long simmering.
Thick yogurt
Adds moisture and mild acidity that softens the meat and rounds the sauce.
Ghee
Carries the spices and adds a rich, nutty fat for frying.
Sliced onions
Fried to golden and added to build body, sweetness and depth in the sauce.

The step that matters

Browning the mutton thoroughly. Searing the meat with the spices builds deep flavour through the Maillard reaction. Pale, steamed meat gives a flat curry, so brown it well before adding liquid.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, ghee, yogurt, coriander, cinnamon, lemon grass, ginger):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, ghee, yogurt, coriander, cinnamon, lemon grass, ginger. 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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