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Curried Vegetables

A sautéed vegetable dish flavored with curry powder, butter, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Curried Vegetables

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a pan, melt the butter and fry the chopped onion for a few minutes without browning.

  2. Add the curry powder and flour, stirring well.

  3. Pour in the cream or milk and bring to a boil.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the diced carrots, turnips, and boiled peas, then cook slowly for 10 minutes.

  2. Stir in the lemon juice before serving.

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. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Turnip + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Carrot + peastop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,994 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Carrots
Hold their shape and add body and mild sweetness to the vegetables.
Turnips
Add firm texture and a slightly peppery, earthy flavour to the dish.
Green peas
Add sweetness, bright colour and a soft texture.
Onion
Builds aromatic flavour as it softens in the butter.
Butter
Carries the curry powder's aroma and adds richness.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture and richness, and thickens the sauce slightly.

The step that matters

Fry the onion without browning. Onion that browns turns bitter and sticky, changing the sauce's flavour. Gentle frying softens it and keeps its sweetness, so the curry tastes mild and fresh.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, peas, onion, butter, cream, flour):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, peas, onion, butter, cream, 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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