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Curry Chicken and Rice

A stew of chicken and salt pork flavored with curry powder, served with molded rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,417 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Curry Chicken and Rice

Ingredients

Directions

Make the chicken

  1. In a pot, combine the chicken, salt pork, onion, salt, and enough cold water to cover the chicken.

  2. Boil slowly until the chicken is tender and the water has mostly evaporated.

Add the curry and serve

  1. Mix the curry powder with a little water and stir it into the gravy.

  2. Let the chicken stew with the curry mixture for a few minutes.

  3. Serve the chicken with the molded rice arranged around it.

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 + porktop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,417 recipes

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

  2. Chicken + ricetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,769 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

  5. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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, which becomes tender as it simmers slowly in the pot.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor to the cooking liquid and gravy.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and body to the gravy as it cooks down.
Curry powder
Gives the gravy its spiced aroma and warm flavor.

The step that matters

Stewing the curry into the gravy. Curry powder needs gentle heat in a fat- and liquid-based gravy to bloom its aroma. Adding it to a nearly dry pot risks scorching and a raw, dusty taste.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pork, 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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