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Currie of Veal, Rabbit, or Fowl

A curry of veal, rabbit, or fowl cooked with butter, flour, curry powder, onions, white stock, salt, and lemon juice or vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour 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 ↓

Currie of Veal, Rabbit, or Fowl

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt a good amount of butter in a skillet over medium heat.

  2. Dust one side of the meat with flour, then sprinkle curry powder on that side.

  3. Turn the meat over, dust the other side with curry powder, and add the minced onions, being careful not to burn them.

  4. Cook until the meat is light brown, then add white stock and a little coarse sea salt.

  5. Stew until the meat is tender.

  6. Before serving, skim off the fat and stir in a teaspoon of lemon juice or vinegar.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Veal + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

What each ingredient does

Veal, rabbit, fowl, or sweetbreads
The main protein, which becomes tender through slow stewing in the sauce.
Flour
Coats the meat so it browns well and helps thicken the sauce.
Curry powder
Provides the spiced, aromatic flavour of the dish, toasted in the fat.
Finely minced onions
Adds sweetness and savoury body to the sauce as they soften in the butter.
Lemon juice or vinegar
Adds a touch of acidity that brightens the rich, fatty sauce.

The step that matters

Watching the onions and curry powder in the butter. Curry powder and finely minced onions scorch quickly over direct heat, and burnt spices taste bitter and acrid. Keeping the heat at medium and stirring keeps them fragrant and sweet.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Avocadofits about as well
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Raisinfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, flour, onion. 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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