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An Indian Curry

A curry made with butter, onion, apple, lemon, cocoa-nut, chutney, stock, meat, curry powder, rice flour, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,433 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

An Indian Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in an iron saucepan.

  2. Fry the onion and apple in the butter for five minutes, stirring occasionally.

  3. Mix the curry powder and rice flour with the milk from the cocoa-nut and lemon juice.

  4. Add the stock.

  5. Pour this mixture into the saucepan and stir until boiling.

Simmer and serve

  1. Add the grated cocoa-nut and chutney with the meat.

  2. Let the mixture simmer gently for fifteen minutes.

  3. Just before serving, add the cream and a little salt.

  4. Serve on a hot dish with rice around it or separately.

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

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

  2. Lemon + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Rabbit + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together252 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Apple + cocoatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together52 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Cocoa + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together93 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice flour
Thickens the sauce so it clings to the meat and rice.
Apple
Softens into the onion base, adding gentle sweetness to balance the curry spices.
Butter
Carries the onion and apple flavour and adds richness to the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the sweetness of the apple and cocoa-nut.
Cocoa-nut
Contributes coconut milk and grated flesh for body, moisture and a mellow sweetness.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture when stirred in at the end.

The step that matters

Pouring the flour mixture into the boiling stock. Rice flour thickens only when heated, and adding it to liquid without first mixing it smoothly with cold liquid can leave lumps. Stirring until the sauce boils lets the starch swell evenly into a smooth sauce.

Swap the cocoa

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Beansfits better
  4. Cocoathe original

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