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To Make Curry

A curry made by frying chicken or rabbit with curry powder, then simmering in a cream and flour sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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To Make Curry

Why it works: Chicken and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,769 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

To Make Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Rub the chicken or rabbit pieces with curry powder and salt.

  2. Fry in butter until nicely browned.

  3. Drain on a fine sieve.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine cream, flour, and curry powder.

  2. Add melted butter, cayenne, and salt to taste, and let it boil.

Serve

  1. Serve the curry over cooked 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Chicken + ricetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,769 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

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

  5. Butter + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

Chicken or rabbit
Provides the main protein; browning in butter adds savory flavor to the meat.
Cream
Adds richness and body to the sauce, mellowing the spices.
Flour
Thickens the cream into a sauce as it heats and boils.
Butter
Carries the spices and browns the meat, adding fat and rich flavor.

The step that matters

Frying the chicken until nicely browned. Browning through the Maillard reaction builds deep savory flavor. Pieces that are crowded or wet will steam rather than brown, so drain them well and fry in batches.

“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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