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Curry of Spring Chicken

A curry made from young chicken, butter, onion, curry powder, and lemon, served over boiled rice.

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 ↓

Curry of Spring Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the curry

  1. In a frying pan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the sliced onion and chicken; fry until browned.

  3. Remove the chicken and place it in a saucepan with a little water.

  4. Season with salt and let it simmer gently for 15 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the sugar and lemon juice.

  2. Mix the curry powder and flour with a little cold water, then add to the chicken.

  3. Stir until it boils and serve with 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. 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 + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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
Provides the main protein; browning and gentle simmering keep the meat tender and flavourful.
Butter
Carries fat for frying, adding richness and helping the onion and chicken brown.
Curry powder
Supplies the spiced aroma that defines the dish.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it comes to a boil, giving it body.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the richness and spice.

The step that matters

Stir the curry powder and flour into cold water before adding. Flour and spice mixed into hot liquid clump, leaving lumps and raw flour taste. Blending them smoothly in cold water first lets the starch disperse evenly, so it thickens the sauce uniformly when it boils.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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