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Curry of Turkey

A turkey curry simmered with shallots, butter, rice flour, curry powder, stock, cream, and lemon juice, served over boiled rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Curry of Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Fry the shallots in the butter for 10 minutes without discoloring.

  2. Add the rice flour and curry powder.

  3. Pour in the stock.

  4. Cook for 15 minutes.

  5. Strain the mixture.

Finish and serve

  1. Add pepper, salt, turkey slices, and cream to the strained mixture.

  2. Simmer for a few minutes.

  3. Add lemon juice.

  4. Serve in a border of 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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Shallot + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together284 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

Shallots
Soften and add a mild sweetness and aromatic base to the sauce.
Butter
Carries the shallots and adds richness and flavor to the sauce.
Rice flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce.
Turkey
Provides the main protein, cooked gently in the sauce to stay tender.
Cream
Adds richness and body, softening the sauce's finish.
Rice
Forms the boiled border that holds and accompanies the curry.

The step that matters

Fry the shallots without discoloring. Browned shallots turn bitter and darken the sauce, so they should be cooked gently in the butter until soft and pale. Low, steady heat softens them while keeping the curry's flavor mild and clean.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shallot, butter, rice, flour, turkey, cream, pepper):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Avocadofits about as well
  4. Limefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against shallot, butter, rice, flour, turkey, cream, pepper. 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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