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A Common Indian Currie

A curry made with meat, onions, and curry powder, simmered in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

A Common Indian Currie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix curry powder, salt, and flour in a bowl.

  2. Cut the meat into thick small cutlets or squares and rub half of the spice mixture over it.

Fry

  1. Fry the sliced onions (and garlic or shallots if using) in butter until golden brown, then drain on a sieve.

  2. Add more butter to the pan and lightly fry the meat until browned, then drain excess fat.

Simmer and serve

  1. Transfer the meat to a clean stewpan and layer the fried onions on top.

  2. Pour in boiling water to almost cover the meat.

  3. Mix the remaining curry powder with a little broth or cold water, then add to the stewpan, shaking to blend.

  4. Simmer gently until the meat is tender, about 1.25 to 2.5 hours depending on the type of meat.

  5. Add optional vegetables like acid apples, young green peas, or cucumbers during cooking.

  6. Stir in lemon juice before serving if no other acid is used.

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 + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Garlic + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Clove + shallottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Shallot + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,523 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Flour + shallottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Meat
Provides the main protein; slow simmering turns connective tissue tender and rich.
Curry powder
Supplies the spiced aroma and flavour that define the dish.
Flour
Mixed with the spices, it helps thicken the sauce as it simmers.
Onions
Browned in butter, they add sweetness and body to the sauce.
Butter
Fat for frying that browns the onions and meat and carries flavour.

The step that matters

Frying the meat until browned. Browning creates flavourful Maillard compounds on the surface. Pale meat added to the stew gives a flatter taste, so the meat should colour well before simmering.

Swap the clove

The recipe marks clove as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, flour, onion, garlic, shallot, butter, lemon):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, flour, onion, garlic, shallot, butter, 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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