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A Curry Op Cold Meat

A curry made with cold meat, stock, flour, curry powder, onion, apple, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Meat and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,364 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

A Curry Op Cold Meat

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Fry the onion in hot dripping until brown.

  2. Fry the minced apple until soft.

  3. Mix the curry powder and flour with the stock or water until smooth.

  4. Pour the mixture into a saucepan.

  5. Bring to a boil, adding salt to taste.

  6. Add the cold meat.

  7. Heat through.

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. Meat + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Flour + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Flour + appletop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,140 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Meat + appletop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together787 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold meat
Forms the main body of the dish and absorbs the sauce as it heats through.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce.
Curry powder
Provides the spiced, aromatic flavour of the curry.
Onion
Browns in the dripping to add sweetness and depth to the sauce.
Apple
Softens and adds mild sweetness that balances the curry powder.

The step that matters

Mix the curry powder and flour with the liquid until smooth. Mixing the flour and curry powder into cold liquid before heating prevents lumps, because starch granules disperse evenly and thicken the sauce uniformly as it heats.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, flour, onion. 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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