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Dry Curry

A dry beef curry with apple, onion, curry powder, chutney, and red currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Dry Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and slice the apple and onion, cutting the onion from top to bottom.

Cook the curry

  1. In a stewpan, melt the butter and add the curry powder, frying for 10 minutes without discoloring.

  2. Add the beef, cut into small pieces, along with the chutney and red currant jelly.

  3. Stir well and cook gently over a clear fire until the meat is tender.

  4. Half an hour before serving, add lemon juice and salt to taste.

Serve

  1. Serve with well-cooked 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. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + red curranttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together309 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Apple + red curranttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together111 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

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

  5. Butter + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef steak
Provides the main protein, which becomes tender through gentle, slow cooking.
Butter
Carries the curry powder's flavour and gives the dish richness.
Curry powder
Supplies the spiced aroma that defines the dish once fried in butter.
Apple
Adds mild sweetness and body that balances the spices.
Onion
Adds savoury depth and sweetness as it softens into the sauce.

The step that matters

Frying the curry powder in butter. Frying curry powder in fat releases its fat-soluble aromatic compounds, which deepens flavour. Frying too hot or too long can scorch it and make the curry bitter, so the powder should be cooked gently without browning.

Swap the red currant

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

  1. Grapefits better
  2. Mangofits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Red currantthe original

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