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Silon Curry

A coconut-based curry with meat, cooked in butter, curry powder, flour, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and chicken match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,148 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Silon Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curry base

  1. In a chafing dish, cook the onion in butter for 5 minutes.

  2. Add curry powder and flour, stir, and cook for 3 minutes.

  3. Pour in boiling water and beef extract, add salt, and cook for 6 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the cooked meat and coconut, then add cream.

  2. Cook for an additional 10 minutes and serve.

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 + chickentop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,148 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  2. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Onion + chickentop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  5. Chicken + coconuttop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together808 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the butter and liquid.
Butter
Carries the onion and curry powder, adding richness to the sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and a smoother, mellower texture to the sauce.
Fresh grated coconut
Adds moisture, body and a sweet, nutty flavour to the curry.

The step that matters

Cooking the curry powder and flour. Stirring the curry powder and flour in fat for a few minutes toasts the spices and cooks out the raw flour taste before the liquid is added, so the sauce tastes deeper and thickens evenly.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Avocadofits about as well
  2. Coconutthe original
  3. Raisinfits less well
  4. Grapefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter, flour, beef, chicken, cream. 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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