Skip to main content
Main

Curry of Veal

A veal curry simmered with onions, curry powder, and gravy, served over rice and accompanied by chutney or pickles.

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

Why it works: Milk and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,374 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Curry of Veal

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curry

  1. Heat veal dripping in a pan and fry sliced onions until golden brown, then drain excess fat.

  2. Add onions to a stewpan with veal and stir in gravy or water (or milk).

  3. Simmer gently for 1 hour and 15 minutes, stirring constantly.

Prepare the rice

  1. Boil rice in water for 25 minutes, then drain and dry the rice.

  2. Shape rice into a wall around a dish.

Serve

  1. Serve the curry in the center.

  2. Serve with chutney or mixed pickles.

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. Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

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

  3. Vinegar + oniontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
Forms the main body of the curry and becomes tender during slow simmering.
Onions
Fried until golden brown, they add sweetness and depth to the curry base.
Curry powder
Provides the spiced flavour that defines the dish.
Baked flour
Thickens the liquid so the curry has body rather than being watery.
Rice
Serves as the starchy base that holds its shape around the curry.

The step that matters

Simmering the curry gently. Simmering gently for over an hour lets the veal become tender and the sauce thicken evenly. Boiling hard can toughen the meat and cause the sauce to reduce unevenly or stick, so constant stirring helps prevent scorching.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, vinegar, veal, milk, rice):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Cucumberfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, vinegar, veal, milk, rice. 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 veal curry recipes

Soup 15 See all 34 →

You might also like

Rice FrittersRice Fritters84 recipesVeal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesSteamed RiceSteamed Rice48 recipesRice Griddle CakesRice Griddle Cakes28 recipes