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Currie, or Pepper Water

A chicken curry made with curry powder, veal broth, onions, butter, lemon, tamarind, flour, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Currie, or Pepper Water

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Blanch and wash the chicken pieces.

  2. Place the chicken in a small stewpot.

  3. Add curry powder and 1 cup of veal broth to the chicken.

  4. Simmer until half cooked.

Make the sauce

  1. Fry the sliced onions in butter until nearly done and browned.

  2. Add the fried onions to the chicken along with the remaining veal broth, lemon juice, and tamarind juice.

  3. Boil until the chicken is nearly done.

  4. Remove the chicken to another stewpan.

  5. Rub the remaining ingredients through a fine sieve.

  6. Add the sieved mixture to the chicken.

  7. Mix in flour and a little water to thicken.

  8. Bring to a boil.

Season and serve

  1. Season with cayenne pepper and salt to taste.

  2. Skim off any fat.

  3. Serve in a bowl.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + tamarindtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together170 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

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

  4. Tamarind + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together207 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Onion + tamarindtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together426 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main body of the dish, cooked gently in the curry liquid until tender.
Curry powder
Supplies the dominant spice flavour and aroma that defines the dish.
Onions
Fried until browned, they add sweetness and depth to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a smoother, more cohesive sauce.
Tamarind juice
Adds sourness that balances the richness and spice of the curry.
Butter
Carries the frying of the onions, adding fat and richness to the sauce.

The step that matters

Thickening with flour and water. Flour mixed in cold or unevenly will form lumps, because starch clumps before it hydrates. Mixing it into a little water first and then stirring it into the simmering sauce helps it disperse and thicken smoothly.

Swap the tamarind

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

  1. Limefits better
  2. Avocadofits about as well
  3. Tamarindthe original
  4. Coconutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, veal, onion, butter, lemon, flour, pepper. 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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