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Miss Parloa's Chicken Curry

A chicken curry made with butter, onions, curry powder, tomatoes, milk, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Miss Parloa's Chicken Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curry

  1. Melt the butter in a large pot.

  2. Add the chopped onions and cook until they are brown.

  3. Add the chicken pieces, curry powder, tomatoes, salt, and cayenne pepper. Stir well.

  4. Cover tightly and let simmer for one hour, stirring occasionally.

  5. Add the milk and bring to a boil once.

Serve

  1. Serve with or without boiled 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Chicken + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,031 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 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

Chicken
Provides the main protein, which becomes tender as it simmers in the sauce.
Butter
Carries the curry powder's aroma and adds richness to the sauce.
Onions
Soften and brown to build the sweet, savoury base of the sauce.
Curry powder
Supplies the spice blend that gives the dish its characteristic flavour.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and moisture that help form the body of the sauce.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mellows the sharpness of the spices and tomato.

The step that matters

Cover tightly and let simmer for one hour, stirring occasionally. A gentle, covered simmer lets the chicken cook through and tenderise while the sauce thickens slowly. Stirring prevents scorching on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, butter, tomato, pepper, milk):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Onionthe original
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, tomato, pepper, milk. 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.

More chicken curry recipes

with Rice 14Indian 9East Indian 5Whole 5Coconut 4Anglo-Indian 3 See all 164 →

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