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Beef, Curried

A stew of beef, curry, apple, and onions served over rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beef, Curried

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Cut the beef into slices about 4 inches thick and 1 inch square.

  2. Melt the butter in a stew pan and fry the meat quickly and lightly.

  3. Remove the meat to a plate.

Make the sauce

  1. Add the onion, flour, and curry powder to the pan and fry gently for 10 minutes.

  2. Add the stock, curry paste, sliced apple, and salt to taste, then bring to a boil.

  3. Return the meat to the pan, cover closely, and cook gently for 1.5 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Boil the rice, then drain and dry thoroughly.

  2. When the meat is done, remove it to a hot dish, season the sauce to taste, add the lemon juice, and strain over the meat.

  3. Serve the rice separately.

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. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  2. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

  3. Beef + ricetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,265 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Lemon + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Lean, tender meat that becomes succulent when gently simmered in the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce and helps it cling to the meat.
Curry powder
Provides the main spiced aroma and flavour of the dish.
Sour apple
Adds acidity and body to the sauce as it cooks down.
Onions
Form a sweet, savoury base that softens into the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat for frying and a rich, rounded flavour.

The step that matters

Gently simmering the covered meat. Cooking at a gentle simmer for a long time breaks down connective tissue slowly, keeping the beef tender and moist. A hard boil toughens muscle fibres and can reduce the sauce too quickly.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, butter, flour, onion, lemon, rice):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, flour, onion, lemon, rice. 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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