Name: 25' Curry
Ingredients: meats, fowls, or rabbits; 1 onion, chopped; 2 tablespoons curry powder; dredge of flour; juice of ½ lemon; 1 tablespoon butter; a little ketchup

Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

25' Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Cut the meats, fowls, or rabbits into small joints.
Fry them brown in a pan with the chopped onion.
When half done, remove them and place in a stewpan.
Add curry powder, a dredge of flour, lemon juice, butter, and ketchup.
Let it simmer until fully 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.

Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + ketchuptop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,435 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together42,912 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,594 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Swap the lemon

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

Avocadofits better
Raisinfits better
Coconutfits about as well
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, onion, flour, butter, ketchup. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.