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Mathee Ka Bajee and Fennel Curry with Meat

A curry of meat and fennel cooked with onions, ginger, garlic, turmeric, chillies, coriander, lime, and ghee.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Coriander and lime match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,536 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Mathee Ka Bajee and Fennel Curry with Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curry base

  1. Brown half of the onions in ghee.

  2. Mix the ground meat with the browned onions.

  3. Add ground ginger, garlic, coriander, dried chillies, and turmeric to the mixture.

  4. Add the meat and water, then let it simmer while stirring until browned.

Add the fennel and finish

  1. Slice the remaining onions thinly and mix with the cleaned mathee.

  2. Combine the mathee and onions with the curry and simmer until cooked.

  3. Remove from heat and squeeze in lime juice.

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. Coriander + limetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Ginger + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Ginger + coriandertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Turmeric + coriandertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,253 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Ghee
Carries heat evenly and browns the onions, adding a rich, nutty flavour.
Onions
Browned onions add sweetness and body to the curry base.
Meat
Provides the main protein and savoury bulk of the curry.
Mathee (fennel)
Adds a light anise aroma and a tender, slightly sweet vegetable element.
Lime juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, spiced flavours when added off heat.

The step that matters

Browning the meat in the simmer. Stirring while the meat browns in the liquid helps it develop flavour without scorching on the bottom of the pan. Letting the liquid cook off gives browning, while stopping too early leaves the meat pale and bland.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ghee, meat, ginger, garlic, turmeric, coriander, lime):

  1. Welsh onionfits better
  2. Broccolifits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ghee, meat, ginger, garlic, turmeric, coriander, lime. 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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