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Curry Chicken

A chicken stew with salt pork and curry powder, served over rice.

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 ↓

Curry Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curry

  1. In a saucepan, combine chicken, salt pork, onion, and coarse sea salt.

  2. Add enough cold water to cover the chicken and simmer until tender and water has reduced.

  3. Mix curry powder with a little water and stir into the gravy. Let it stew with the chicken for 10 minutes.

Serve

  1. Remove the onion, dish the chicken, and pour the gravy over it.

  2. Serve with rice arranged around 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 + 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. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 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

Chicken
Provides the main protein; simmering until tender breaks down connective tissue for a soft texture.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor that enriches the gravy as it cooks down.
Curry powder
Supplies the spice blend that gives the gravy its characteristic aroma and flavor.
Onion
Releases sweetness and body into the gravy during simmering.

The step that matters

Simmering the chicken until tender and reduced. Too little heat makes the meat tough, while too much can dry it out or scorch the gravy. A gentle simmer lets connective tissue soften while the liquid thickens into a flavorful gravy.

Swap the onion

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

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

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

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