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Curry of Chicken, Bombay Style

A chicken curry cooked with curry powder, onion, garlic, ginger, coconut milk, and seasoned with salt, garnished with cilantro.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Curry of Chicken, Bombay Style

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the curry base

  1. Heat the vegetable oil in a large pan over medium heat.

  2. Add the chopped onion, garlic, and ginger.

  3. Sauté until the onion is translucent.

  4. Stir in the curry powder.

  5. Cook for 1 minute.

Cook the chicken

  1. Add the chicken pieces.

  2. Cook until browned on all sides.

  3. Pour in the coconut milk.

  4. Season with salt.

  5. Simmer until the chicken is cooked through, about 25 minutes.

  6. Garnish with fresh cilantro before serving.

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. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Ginger + coconuttop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,168 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Garlic + gingertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,402 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Chicken + garlictop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,850 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

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 and cooked through during simmering.
Coconut milk
Adds fat and creaminess, mellowing the spices and giving the sauce body.
Onion
Softens and sweetens as it cooks, forming the savory base of the sauce.
Curry powder
Supplies the main aromatic spice blend that defines the dish's flavor.
Garlic
Contributes pungent aroma that mellows and sweetens with gentle cooking.
Ginger
Adds warm, fresh aroma that complements the curry spices.

The step that matters

Brown the chicken on all sides. Browning builds flavor through the Maillard reaction, which adds savory depth. Crowding the pan or stirring too little causes steaming instead, leaving the chicken pale and the sauce flat.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, onion, garlic, ginger, coconut, milk):

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Cuminfits better
  3. Corianderfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, onion, garlic, ginger, coconut, milk. 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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