Skip to main content
Main

Curried Chicken

A chicken dish simmered in butter, onion, curry powder, and broth, served with rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Curried Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curry

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat and add the chopped onion.

  2. Stir in the curry powder and a few spoonfuls of broth.

  3. Add the disjointed chicken and bring to a boil.

  4. Cover and simmer gently for 30 minutes, adding more broth, cream, or water if it gets dry.

  5. Season with salt.

Serve

  1. Cook rice in a separate saucepan and serve it alongside the chicken.

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

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

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

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

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, which becomes tender as it simmers gently in the sauce.
Butter
Carries the curry powder's fat-soluble aroma and adds richness to the sauce.
Onion
Builds a sweet, savory base as it softens in the melted butter.
Curry powder
Supplies the spice aroma and flavor that define the dish.

The step that matters

Simmer gently with the lid on. A gentle simmer keeps the chicken tender rather than tough, and the lid slows evaporation. Because the sauce can dry out, adding a little liquid as needed keeps the chicken moist and prevents scorching on the pan base.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, 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.

More chicken curry recipes

with Rice 14Indian 9East Indian 5Whole 5Coconut 4Anglo-Indian 3 See all 164 →

You might also like

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