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Curried Chicken

A chicken stew flavored with curry powder, thickened with flour and butter, served with rice and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

Curried Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Cut off the legs and wings of the chicken, leaving the breast bone whole.

  2. Place the chicken in a pot and cover with hot water. Add the onion.

  3. Simmer slowly for 1 hour until the chicken is tender.

  4. Transfer the chicken to a platter.

Make the sauce and rice

  1. Thicken the sauce with flour and butter, adding curry powder mixed with a little water.

  2. In a separate double saucepan, boil the rice in salted water until cooked.

Serve

  1. Garnish the dish with spoonfuls of rice and a few sprigs of parsley.

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

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

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

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

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Rice + parsleytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,762 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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 during slow simmering.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it heats with the butter and liquid.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the sauce and helps form the thickened base with flour.
Curry powder
Adds the spiced, aromatic flavour that defines the sauce.
Rice
Serves as a starchy side that absorbs the sauce and forms the garnish.

The step that matters

Thicken the sauce with flour and butter. Flour must be cooked into the butter and then blended with liquid, or it forms lumps and the sauce tastes raw. Adding curry powder mixed with water first helps it disperse evenly.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

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