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Anglo-indian Fowl-curry

A spicy chicken curry with clarified butter, onions, coriander, cumin, mustard, chillies, peppercorns, vendium seeds, and turmeric.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cumin and turmeric match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,698 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Anglo-indian Fowl-curry

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the curry

  1. Heat the clarified butter, lard, or olive oil in a pot over medium heat.

  2. Add the finely sliced onions and sauté until golden brown.

  3. Stir in the ground coriander paste, cumin pulp, mustard paste, and red chilli paste.

  4. Cook for a few minutes until fragrant, then add the chicken pieces.

  5. Cover and cook until the chicken is tender, stirring occasionally.

  6. Add the ground peppercorns and vendium seed powder, mixing well.

  7. If using fresh turmeric, add it now and cook for an additional 10 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve hot with rice or bread.

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. Cumin + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,698 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Coriander + cumintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,866 recipes

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

  3. Coriander + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,253 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Mustard + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Onion + cumintop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,498 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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 cooks slowly in the spiced sauce.
Onions
Sliced and browned to build sweetness and a deep base flavour for the curry.
Clarified butter, lard, or olive oil
Carries the spices and conducts heat, helping them bloom and coat the chicken.
Red chillies
Add heat and colour to the sauce.
Coriander seeds
Contribute a warm, citrusy aroma that rounds out the spice blend.
Black peppercorns
Add sharp, pungent heat that lifts the other spices.

The step that matters

Browning the onions. Onions cooked until golden brown develop sweetness and depth through the Maillard reaction and caramelisation. Stopping early leaves a raw, sharp taste in the finished curry.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, butter, onion, coriander, cumin, turmeric):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Okrafits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, onion, coriander, cumin, turmeric. 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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