Skip to main content
Main

Vegetable Currie

A stew of potatoes, onions, vegetables, and curry powder simmered in brown gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Vegetable Currie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and cut the potatoes into square pieces.

  2. Fry the potatoes in butter until light brown.

Cook the curry

  1. In a stewpan, combine the fried potatoes, brown gravy, raw onion, fried onion, vegetable marrow, green peas, French beans, and cucumber.

  2. Add curry powder, vinegar, and salt.

  3. Simmer slowly, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are nearly cooked.

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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Beans + cucumbertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together602 recipes

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

  3. Potato + beanstop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together655 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Peas + beanstop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together949 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Peas + cucumbertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Frying in butter gives them a browned surface and a firm body that holds up in the stew.
Brown gravy
Supplies the liquid and savory base that the vegetables simmer in.
Curry powder
Provides the spice blend that gives the dish its characteristic flavor.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich gravy and balances the spices.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and body to the sauce, raw and fried together.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly, stirring occasionally. Gentle heat cooks the vegetables through without breaking them down, while occasional stirring prevents the gravy from scorching on the base of the pan.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, butter, onion, beans, cucumber, vinegar):

  1. Sesamefits better
  2. Chickpeafits better
  3. Lentilsfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, butter, onion, beans, cucumber, 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.

More vegetable curry recipes

Soup 3Stew 3 See all 29 →

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesGreen PeasGreen Peas229 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipes