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Whole Chickens Curried

A dish of whole chickens simmered in water with pepper, salt, pork, rice, and curry powder.

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

Whole Chickens Curried

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the chicken

  1. Place the whole chickens in a saucepan with pepper, salt, and pork.

  2. Cover with cold water and bring to a boil.

  3. When the chickens are half cooked, add rice and more water if needed.

  4. Continue boiling until the chickens are tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Transfer the chickens to a serving dish.

  2. Mix curry powder into the gravy and stir well.

  3. Pour the gravy over the chickens before serving.

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 + 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. Pork + ricetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,137 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + porktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 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

Rice
Thickens the cooking liquid into a gravy as it softens and breaks down.
Curry powder
Adds the spiced aroma and flavour that define the gravy.
Pork
Adds savoury flavour to the cooking liquid as it simmers with the chicken.

The step that matters

Adding the rice mid-cook. Rice added halfway through boiling needs enough liquid to absorb and soften. If the water runs low, the rice can scorch on the pan base or stay firm, so the record's note to add more water if needed matters.

“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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