Skip to main content
Main

Curry

A curry made with apples, onions, butter, curry powder, rice flour, stock, lemon, salt, pepper, and cold cooked meat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Curry

Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curry base

  1. In a saucepan, heat the butter until hot.

  2. Add the chopped apples and minced onions; cook for 10 minutes until the onions brown.

  3. Stir in the curry powder and rice flour; cook well together.

  4. Add the stock or water; bring to a boil and remove any scum.

Finish and add meat

  1. Flavor with lemon juice, salt, and pepper; pass through a sieve.

  2. Return the curry to a clean pan and add the cold meat; stir until heated through without boiling.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Break down into the thick body of the sauce and add a mild, natural sweetness.
Onions
Brown in the butter to build savory sweetness and depth of flavor.
Curry powder
Supplies the main spice aroma and warm flavor of the dish.
Rice flour
Thickens the stock as it cooks, giving the curry a smooth body.
Butter or dripping
Carries the spices and onions, adding richness and fat to the sauce.

The step that matters

Return the curry to a clean pan and add the cold meat without boiling. Boiling toughens cooked meat and can make the sauce separate or turn grainy. Heating gently just until the meat is hot keeps it tender and the sauce smooth.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, butter, rice, flour, lemon, pepper, meat):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter, rice, flour, lemon, pepper, meat. 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.

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesRice FrittersRice Fritters84 recipesMeat CroquettesMeat Croquettes52 recipesSteamed RiceSteamed Rice48 recipes