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 Dishes
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the meat
Boil the chicken or veal until tender, then separate the joints.
Make the curry
In a stew pan, melt the butter and add the meat.
Pour in enough of the cooking liquid to cover the meat and let it stew for 20 minutes.
In a bowl, mix the curry powder, boiled rice, flour, melted butter, cooking liquid, and salt.
Pour the mixture over the meat and let it stew for an additional 10 minutes.
Serve
Serve with boiled rice as an accompaniment.
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.
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Chicken + ricetop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,769 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Chicken + meattop 13% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,449 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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Rice + meattop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,481 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,902 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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 or veal
- Provides the main protein, which becomes tender through long simmering in liquid.
- Curry powder
- Supplies the spiced aroma and flavour that defines the dish.
- Flour
- Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth, lightly bound sauce.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, carrying the curry flavour through the sauce.
- Cooking liquid from the meat
- Supplies moisture that forms the sauce and keeps the meat from drying out.
The step that matters
Mixing the flour into the sauce. Flour clumps if it is added dry or unevenly to hot liquid. Mixing it smoothly first in a bowl with liquid helps it disperse and thicken the sauce evenly.
“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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