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Dry Curry

A curry made with cold meat, onion, butter, curry powder, salt, pepper, and milk or cream, served dry over rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Dry Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat and onion

  1. Trim off the skin and gristle from the cold meat.

  2. Cut the meat into small slices.

  3. Finely shred the onion.

Make the curry

  1. In a clean stewpan, melt the butter and fry the shredded onion until golden brown.

  2. Add the meat slices and stir until warmed through.

  3. Sprinkle curry powder over the meat.

  4. Season with salt and pepper.

  5. Add enough milk or cream to moisten the curry.

  6. Stir until the curry is dry and serve with boiled rice.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Meat + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,364 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cold meat
Forms the main body of the dish, providing the protein that is warmed and coated in curry.
Onion
Softens and browns in butter, adding sweetness and savoury depth to the base.
Butter
Carries the frying of the onion and adds richness and browning.
Curry powder
Supplies the spice aroma and flavour that define the dish.
Milk or cream
Moistens the curry and adds softness and richness to the meat.

The step that matters

Stir until the curry is dry. Adding milk or cream moistens the meat, and the curry must be stirred over heat long enough for the liquid to evaporate. Stopping early leaves a wet, loose dish, while over-reducing can make the meat tough and dry.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, butter, pepper, milk):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, butter, pepper, milk. 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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