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Beef Curry

A beef curry simmered with coconut cream, curry powder, and aromatics.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Beef Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curry

  1. Heat the dripping in a frying pan.

  2. Fry the beef lightly without browning it.

  3. In a bowl, combine curry powder, sugar, chutney, crushed chili, onions, garlic, ginger, salt, lime juice, and citronella.

  4. Add the prepared coconut cream to the mixture.

  5. Pour the mixture over the beef.

  6. Stir well.

  7. Add more coconut milk if necessary.

  8. Let the curry gently simmer for nearly an hour.

Serve

  1. Serve with vermicelli or 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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Ginger + limetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,621 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Ginger + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the main protein; lightly frying it first seals the surface and keeps the meat tender during simmering.
Coconut cream
Adds richness and body, and its fat helps carry the curry spices and aroma.
Onions
Break down during simmering to thicken the sauce and add sweetness.
Garlic
Contributes pungent aroma that mellows and sweetens as the curry cooks.
Curry powder
Supplies the main spice flavour, which deepens as it is cooked in fat and liquid.

The step that matters

Fry the beef lightly without browning it. Searing the beef hard would toughen the surface and dull the flavour of the sauce; a light fry only seals the meat before the long simmer softens it.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, sugar, clove, garlic, ginger, nutmeg, lime):

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, sugar, clove, garlic, ginger, nutmeg, lime. 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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