Why it works: Flour and meat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 28% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,529 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Preserved Meat Curried Stew
Ingredients
Directions
Make the stew
Mix the curry powder and flour with cold water to form a smooth batter.
Add the batter to the stewed vegetables and meat.
Let the mixture simmer for 10 minutes.
Serve
Serve hot.
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.
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Flour + meattop 28% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together5,529 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Flour
- Thickens the stew as it cooks, giving it body.
- Curry powder
- Provides the main spice flavour and aroma of the dish.
- Meat
- Supplies the savoury protein and rich flavour that the stew is built around.
The step that matters
Mix the batter smooth before adding it. Flour mixed straight into hot liquid clumps, because the outer starch gels before the inside wets. Mixing it smooth in cold water first lets the starch disperse evenly, so the stew thickens without lumps.
“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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