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Curry of Cold Meat

A curry sauce made with onion, sour apple, vinegar, butter or lard, water or stock, and curry powder, served over sliced cold meat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,226 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Curry of Cold Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sauce

  1. Chop the onion and apple.

  2. In a pan, melt the butter or lard over medium heat.

  3. Fry the onion and apple until softened.

  4. Stir in the curry powder and, if desired, a little flour.

  5. Add the water or stock and cook slowly for 30 minutes.

  6. Strain the sauce and return it to the pan.

Finish and serve

  1. Cut the cold meat into thick slices and add to the sauce.

  2. Cook for 5 minutes until heated through.

  3. Add vinegar just before serving and serve with 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. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Apple + vinegartop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,884 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  5. Onion + appletop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,206 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Onion
Softens and sweetens as it fries, forming the base flavour of the sauce.
Sour apple
Adds tartness and body to the sauce as it softens and breaks down.
Butter or lard
Carries the curry powder's flavour and adds richness to the sauce.
Curry powder
Provides the main spice flavour and aroma of the dish.
Water or stock
Forms the liquid that the vegetables and spices simmer into a sauce.

The step that matters

Cook the sauce slowly for 30 minutes. A gentle, long simmer lets the onion and apple break down and the curry powder bloom, giving a smooth, well-developed sauce. Rushing it leaves the spices raw and the sauce thin.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Plumfits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, vinegar, butter. 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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