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Curry of Chicken, Belgian Hare, Etc

A curry made with chicken, onions, sour apples, coconut, almond milk, and spices, served over boiled rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Coconut and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,093 recipes. Both carry 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine, which smells cocoa, roasted. The science ↓

Curry of Chicken, Belgian Hare, Etc

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Cut the chicken into pieces at the joints and season with salt, paprika, and ginger.

  2. Let the chicken stand.

Make the curry

  1. Fry the onions and sour apples in butter until golden brown.

  2. Add the chicken pieces, cover the pan, and sauté for 8-10 minutes.

  3. Sprinkle in the grated coconut, then gradually stir in the almond milk, flour, curry powder, red pepper, stock, and lemon juice.

  4. Let the mixture simmer for 1 hour.

  5. Remove the chicken pieces and keep them warm.

  6. Pass the sauce through a fine sieve.

Serve

  1. On a serving dish, form a border of boiled rice and place the chicken inside, pouring the sauce over 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. Coconut + almondtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,093 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  2. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

  5. Ginger + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,595 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; cooking in the sauce keeps the meat moist and tender.
Onions
Soften and brown in butter, building sweetness and depth for the sauce base.
Sour apples
Add acidity and fruitiness that balance the richness of the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce so it clings to the chicken rather than running thin.
Coconut
Adds fat, body and mild sweetness to the sauce.
Curry powder
Supplies the warm spice aroma that defines the dish.

The step that matters

Gradually stir in the liquids. Adding the almond milk, stock and flour slowly while stirring prevents lumps, since flour clumps when it meets hot liquid all at once. A smooth, evenly thickened sauce depends on this.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, ginger, onion, butter, coconut, almond, flour. 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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