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Curry, Mauay

A chicken curry made with blanched almonds, butter, lemon, onion, curry powder, gravy, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Curry, Mauay

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the almond paste

  1. Fry the blanched almonds in butter until lightly browned, then drain.

  2. Pound the almonds to a smooth paste with the lemon rind and sliced onion.

Cook the curry

  1. Fry the chicken pieces in the remaining butter until cooked, then drain.

  2. Mix the curry powder and coarse sea salt smoothly with the butter.

  3. Gradually add the gravy, then stir in the chicken and almond paste.

  4. Simmer for 30 minutes, then add the cream.

  5. Let the curry nearly boil, then squeeze in the lemon juice just 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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Onion + chickentop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

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

  3. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Almond + oniontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,769 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Blanched almonds
Add nutty flavour and a creamy body when pounded into a paste.
Butter
Carries flavour and browns the almonds and chicken, adding richness.
Chicken
Provides the main protein, which cooks through in the simmered sauce.
Curry powder
Supplies the spice aroma that defines the dish.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, mellow texture to the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce.

The step that matters

Let the curry nearly boil, then squeeze in the lemon juice just before serving. Cream can split and curdle when boiled hard after it is added, so keep the sauce just below boiling. Acid such as lemon juice is added last so its fresh brightness survives and it does not overwork the dairy.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (almond, butter, onion, chicken, cream):

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Grapefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, butter, onion, chicken, cream. 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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