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Chicken Curry

A slow‑cooked chicken curry with butter, vinegar, curry powder, and a thickened sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Chicken Curry

Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Chicken Curry

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Clean, singe, and cut the chicken into serving pieces.

  2. Chop the giblets and two small onions.

Cook

  1. Heat the butter in a frying pan over high heat and add the chicken.

  2. Cook for 10 minutes.

  3. Add the giblets, onions, salt, vinegar, and curry powder to the chicken.

  4. Cover with boiling water and boil for 5 minutes without removing the cover.

  5. Transfer to a 400°F (200°C) oven for 4 hours using one radiator.

Finish and serve

  1. When ready to serve, remove the chicken.

  2. Thicken the liquid with flour.

  3. Strain.

  4. Pour over the chicken.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Butter + vinegartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  4. Chicken + flourtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,559 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  5. Vinegar + flourtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,652 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; slow cooking in liquid keeps the meat tender and moist.
Butter
Fat that carries the curry powder's flavour and browns the chicken lightly at the start.
Curry powder
Supplies the main spice aroma and flavour of the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smoother, more coating sauce.

The step that matters

Thicken the liquid with flour. Flour must be mixed in so it disperses without lumps; stirred into hot liquid it thickens as its starch swells, so adding it in a slurry or gradually gives an even sauce.

“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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