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Mathee Bajee and Fennel Curry with Meat

A curry of meat, onions, spices, fennel, and lime juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Mathee Bajee and Fennel Curry with Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curry base

  1. Heat ghee in a saucepan and brown half of the chopped onions.

  2. Mix turmeric with the browned onions.

  3. Grind green ginger, garlic, coriander, and dried chilies together.

  4. Add the ground mixture to the onions and then add the meat.

Cook and finish

  1. Add a little water and simmer for 15 minutes.

  2. Stir in the fennel and continue cooking until the meat is browned.

  3. Slice the remaining onions and mix them with the greens.

  4. Add the onion and greens to the saucepan and simmer until cooked.

  5. Remove from heat and squeeze in the lime juice.

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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cinnamon + cardamomtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,299 recipes

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

  3. Coriander + cardamomtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together872 recipes

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

  4. Clove + cardamomtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,114 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Cardamom + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,114 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

Meat
Browns in the pan and becomes tender as it simmers, forming the body of the curry.
Onions
Browning them builds sweetness and savory depth that forms the base of the curry.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma that mellows and deepens as it cooks in the fat.
Green ginger
Contributes a fresh, warm aroma that brightens the spiced base.
Lime juice
Adds acidity that brightens the finished curry.

The step that matters

Browning the onions. Onions cooked slowly until deeply browned develop sweetness and depth through caramelization. Rushing this stage leaves the base pale and flat, and the curry tastes thin.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ghee, coriander, cinnamon, clove, cardamom, pepper, ginger):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ghee, coriander, cinnamon, clove, cardamom, pepper, 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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