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Malabar Curry

A curry made with fowl, curry powder, flour, onion, butter, stock, coconut, lemon, vinegar, and salt, served over rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Coconut and rice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,063 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Malabar Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix the curry powder and flour together.

  2. Coat the fowl pieces with the mixture.

  3. Brown the shredded onion in a stewpan with butter.

  4. Add the fowl pieces to the pan.

  5. Add more butter if necessary.

  6. When the fowl has absorbed most of the butter, moisten with 1 cup of stock.

  7. Shake the pan for a minute or two.

  8. Add the remaining stock and stew until done.

Finish and serve

  1. Grate the coconut just before using.

  2. Mix the grated coconut into the curry by shaking the pan over the fire.

  3. Add the lemon juice and vinegar.

  4. Season with salt.

  5. Serve hot with plain boiled rice on the side.

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. Coconut + ricetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,063 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

  3. Lemon + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

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

  4. Butter + coconuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Fowl
Provides the main protein, which absorbs the butter and spiced flour as it browns and stews.
Curry powder
Supplies the spiced aroma and flavour that defines the dish.
Butter
Carries the spices and browns the onion and fowl, adding richness and flavour.
Grated coconut
Adds body, subtle sweetness and richness to the sauce as it is shaken into the curry.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the rich coconut and butter.

The step that matters

Stewing the fowl in stock until done. Adding the stock in stages and stewing gently lets the meat cook through and the flour and spices thicken the liquid into a sauce; too much heat or too little liquid can scorch the flour and leave the meat dry.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, onion, butter, coconut, vinegar, rice):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Mangofits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, onion, butter, coconut, vinegar, 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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