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Chicken Curry

A slow‑cooked curry of chicken and pork with onions, tomatoes, milk, and rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Chicken Curry

Why it works: Chicken and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,417 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Chicken Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Melt a piece of butter the size of a large walnut in a large porcelain kettle, add the sliced onions, cover, and cook.

  2. In a separate pan, fry the pork until browned but not fully cooked, then transfer to the kettle.

  3. Fry the chicken in the same way as the pork.

  4. Mix the chicken with the flour and curry powder, stirring thoroughly.

Simmer the curry

  1. Add the tomatoes and milk to the kettle, seasoning with salt to taste.

  2. Cover and stir frequently to prevent burning.

  3. Let the mixture simmer for 6 to 7 hours.

Cook the rice and serve

  1. Twenty minutes before serving, boil more than half a kettle of water.

  2. Add the rice and boil for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

  3. Add salt to the rice and boil for an additional 10 minutes.

  4. Drain the rice in a colander.

  5. Serve the curry in a platter and the rice in a soup 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + porktop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,417 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

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

  3. Tomato + ricetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,065 recipes

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

  4. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main meat, browned first so it holds its shape during the long simmer.
Pork
Adds the main meat, browned first so it keeps texture through the long simmer.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the milk and tomatoes.
Milk
Forms the creamy body of the sauce and mellows the spices.
Onions
Soften during slow cooking, adding sweetness and body to the sauce.
Rice
Serves as the starchy side that absorbs the curry sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring the curry while it simmers. Milk and flour-thickened sauces scorch on the bottom of the pot over long cooking, and frequent stirring spreads heat evenly and prevents burnt flavour.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, pork, tomato, flour, milk, rice, butter):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pork, tomato, flour, milk, rice, butter. 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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