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To Make a Dish of Curry After the East Indian Manner

A chicken curry made with boiled chicken, butter, garlic, onion, curry powder, and served with rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Mary Randolph · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and chicken 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 a Dish of Curry After the East Indian Manner

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the chicken

  1. Cut two chickens as for fricassee, wash them clean, and put them in a stew pan with as much water as will cover them.

  2. Sprinkle them with a large spoonful of salt, and let them boil till tender, covered close all the time, and skim them well.

  3. When boiled enough, take up the chickens, and put the liquor of them into a pan.

Make the curry

  1. Put half a pound of fresh butter in the pan, and brown it a little.

  2. Put into it two cloves of garlic, and a large onion sliced, and let these all fry till brown, often shaking the pan.

  3. Then put in the chickens, and sprinkle over them two or three spoonsful of curry powder.

  4. Cover the pan close, and let the chickens do till brown, often shaking the pan.

  5. Then put in the liquor the chickens were boiled in, and let all stew till tender.

  6. If acid is agreeable squeeze the juice of a lemon or orange in it.

Cook and serve the rice

  1. Take half a pound of rice, wash it clean in salt and water.

  2. Put it into two quarts of boiling water, and boil it briskly twenty minutes.

  3. Strain it through a colander and shake it into a dish, but do not touch it with your fingers nor with a spoon.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

493Calories
36 gProtein
16 gFat
49 gCarbs

Counts 7 of 8 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 7 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Rice1 cup cooked (158g) white206
Chicken100g cooked165
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Turmeric1 tsp ground (3g)9
Clove1 tsp ground (2g)7
Garlic1 clove (3g)4
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Mary Randolph. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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. Rice + chickentop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,769 recipes

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

  2. Garlic + chickentop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,850 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

  3. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Garlic + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,358 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Clove + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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; simmering makes it tender, and browning adds savoury flavour.
Butter
Carries the curry flavours and browns the chicken, adding richness and aroma.
Curry powder
Supplies the spice aroma and flavour that define the dish.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma that mellows as it fries in the butter.
Rice
Forms the starchy base that soaks up the sauce.

The step that matters

Browning the chicken with the curry powder. Frying the curry powder in fat and browning the chicken blooms the spices and builds flavour. Stirring often prevents scorching, which would make the sauce bitter.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against garlic, butter, rice, chicken. 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

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