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Curry Sauce

A sauce made with onion, apple, curry powder, flour, butter, and gravy, finished with lemon juice and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Curry Sauce

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 ↓

Curry Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the butter or dripping in a saucepan.

  2. Add the chopped apple and onion, and fry for a few minutes.

  3. Sprinkle in the curry powder and flour, then pour in the gravy.

  4. Stir until it boils, then simmer for 30 minutes.

  5. Strain the sauce, flavor with lemon juice and salt, and bring to a boil before serving.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Onion
Softens and sweetens as it fries, building a savory base for the sauce.
Apple
Adds gentle sweetness and body that balances the curry powder.
Flour
Thickens the gravy into a smooth, coating sauce as it cooks.
Curry powder
Supplies the warm spiced aroma and flavor that defines the sauce.
Butter or dripping
Carries the spices and aromatics, adding richness to the sauce.
Gravy
Forms the liquid base that the sauce simmers in and gains flavor from.

The step that matters

Stir until it boils, then simmer for 30 minutes. Flour needs to come to a boil and simmer long enough to fully thicken and lose its raw starchy taste. Stirring during the early boil prevents lumps and scorching on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, flour, lemon, butter. 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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