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Chicken and Eice Stewed with Curry

A stew of chicken and rice cooked with curry powder, onion, and broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Chicken and Eice Stewed with Curry

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 stew base

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

  2. Add the chopped onion and sauté until translucent.

  3. Stir in the curry powder and cook for 1 minute.

  4. Add the chicken pieces and brown on all sides.

  5. Pour in the chicken broth and bring to a boil.

Simmer with rice

  1. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 30 minutes.

  2. Add the rice, stir, and cook until rice is tender, about 20 minutes.

  3. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

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

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Browning and simmering release savory flavor into the broth while the meat becomes tender.
Rice
Absorbs the flavored broth as it cooks, thickening the stew and becoming tender.
Curry powder
Blooming in hot oil releases aromatic spice compounds that flavor the whole dish.
Chicken broth
Provides the liquid that cooks the rice and carries the seasoning throughout the stew.
Onion
Softening in oil builds sweetness and a savory base for the stew.

The step that matters

Browning the chicken on all sides. Browning creates Maillard flavor compounds on the meat surface that add depth to the broth. Crowding the pot or skipping the sear leaves the stew tasting flat and pale.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

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