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A Bengal Currie

A mutton curry made with fried onions, pounded onion and garlic, spices, and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

A Bengal Currie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the curry base

  1. Fry the sliced onions in butter until done, then remove from the pan.

  2. In a stewpan, combine the pounded onions and garlic with turmeric, ginger, salt, and cayenne pepper.

  3. Add the butter from frying the onions and ½ cup of gravy; stew for 10 minutes without burning.

Add the meat and simmer

  1. Stir in the fried onions and an additional ½ pint of gravy.

  2. Add the meat and simmer gently for at least 1 hour, or until perfectly tender.

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. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Clove + turmerictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,876 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton or other meat
Becomes tender and flavourful as it simmers slowly in the spiced gravy.
Onions
Break down into the sauce, adding body, sweetness and thickness to the curry.
Butter
Carries the spices and adds richness and a rounded flavour to the sauce.
Gravy
Provides the liquid that cooks the meat and forms the body of the curry.
Turmeric
Gives the curry its golden colour and an earthy, warm flavour.

The step that matters

Stewing the onion base without burning. Pounded onions can scorch on the bottom of the pan before the liquid is added, giving a bitter taste. Stirring and keeping the heat gentle lets the onions soften and release their sugars, building a smooth, mellow sauce.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, clove, garlic, turmeric, ginger, pepper, mutton):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, clove, garlic, turmeric, ginger, pepper, mutton. 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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