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Curries, Potted Meats, &C

A curry gravy made from onions, garlic, eschalots, butter, gravy, coconut, curry powder, flour, salt, cream, and acid.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Curries, Potted Meats, &C

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the onions

  1. Slice and fry the onions, garlic, and eschalots in butter until golden brown.

  2. Drain the onions on a sieve and place them in a clean saucepan.

Make the curry gravy

  1. Add the gravy and grated coconut, and simmer for 30 to 45 minutes until the onions are tender.

  2. Press the mixture through a strainer and return it to the saucepan.

  3. Bring the strained gravy to a boil, then add curry powder, flour, and salt, mixing to a smooth batter with cream.

  4. Simmer for 15 to 20 minutes until ready to use.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Clove + coconuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together458 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Garlic + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Form the bulk of the dish and, once softened and strained, give the gravy body and sweetness.
Butter
Fat for frying the onions, adding richness and helping them brown.
Gravy
Liquid base that the onions simmer in, carrying flavour through the dish.
Grated coconut
Adds fat and a mild sweetness that soften the curry's heat.
Curry powder
Provides the spiced flavour that defines the dish.
Flour
Thickens the strained gravy into a smooth batter.

The step that matters

Pressing and thickening the gravy. Pressing the cooked onions through a strainer makes a smooth base, and flour must be fully mixed in with cream before simmering. Otherwise the flour stays lumpy and the gravy does not thicken evenly.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, garlic, butter, coconut, flour, cream, vinegar. 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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