Skip to main content
Main

Rice and Curry Puree

A creamy puree made from rice, onion, parsley, and curry powder simmered in chicken stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Chicken and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,769 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

Rice and Curry Puree

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Boil chicken stock in a pot.

  2. Add soaked rice, minced onion, and chopped parsley.

  3. Cook for 30 minutes or until rice is tender.

  4. Stir in curry powder and cook for 1 more minute.

Serve

  1. Serve in a tureen.

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

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

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

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

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  4. Rice + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

  5. Rice + parsleytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,762 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Raw rice
Softens as it cooks, thickening the stock and giving the puree its body.
Chicken stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the rice and onion as they cook down.
Onion
Adds savoury depth and aroma as it softens into the liquid.
Curry powder
Adds warm spice aroma, bloomed briefly in the hot liquid.

The step that matters

Cook the rice until fully tender. Rice that is undercooked stays gritty and will not blend into a smooth puree. Cooking until it is fully soft lets the starch thicken the liquid and break down evenly.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, rice, onion. 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.

You might also like

Chicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesChicken SoupChicken Soup156 recipesCreamed ChickenCreamed Chicken89 recipesRice FrittersRice Fritters84 recipes