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A Common Indian Currie

A thick curry of meat, onions, and curry powder, simmered slowly until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

A Common Indian Currie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Mix curry powder, salt, and flour in a bowl.

  2. Cut the meat into thick small cutlets or dice.

  3. Rub half of the mixed powder over the meat.

Fry the onions and meat

  1. Fry the sliced onions in butter until golden brown.

  2. Drain the onions on a sieve.

  3. Add more butter to the pan and lightly fry the meat.

  4. Drain excess fat.

Stew the curry

  1. Place the meat in a clean saucepan and top with the fried onions.

  2. Pour in enough boiling water to almost cover the meat.

  3. Mix the remaining curry powder with a little broth or cold water.

  4. After the curry has stewed for a few minutes, add the mixed curry powder. Stir well.

  5. Simmer gently until the meat is tender, about 1.25 to 2.5 hours depending on the meat type.

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

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Garlic + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Clove + shallottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Flour + shallottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + shallottop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,431 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Meat
Provides the main protein that becomes tender during long, gentle simmering.
Curry powder
Supplies the main spice flavour and aroma of the dish.
Flour
Lightly coats the meat and helps thicken the sauce as it cooks.
Onions
Browned in butter, they add sweetness and depth to the sauce.
Butter
Carries fat for frying, adding richness and helping the onions and meat brown.

The step that matters

Frying the onions until golden brown. Onions that are only lightly cooked stay pale and sharp; browning them slowly develops sweetness and deep flavour that carries into the sauce.

Swap the clove

The recipe marks clove as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, flour, onion, garlic, shallot, butter):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, flour, onion, garlic, shallot, butter. 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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