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Curried Chicken

A chicken dish simmered in coconut milk and curry powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Curried Chicken

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 curry base

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

  2. Add the chopped onion and minced garlic; sauté until soft.

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

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

Simmer and serve

  1. Pour in the chicken broth and coconut milk; bring to a simmer.

  2. Cover and cook for 30-40 minutes until the chicken is cooked through.

  3. Season with salt and pepper to taste 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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Chicken + garlictop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,850 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

  4. Garlic + peppertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

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

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 in the liquid.
Curry powder
Supplies the spice blend that gives the dish its characteristic aroma and flavour.
Onion
Softens and sweetens as it cooks, forming the flavour base of the sauce.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma that mellows during cooking and deepens the savoury base.
Chicken broth
Adds liquid that carries flavour and helps the chicken cook gently in the pot.
Coconut milk
Adds fat and richness, giving the sauce a creamy texture and mellow sweetness.

The step that matters

Browning the chicken. Searing the pieces over medium heat builds browned, savoury flavour through the Maillard reaction. Crowding the pot or skipping the sear leaves the chicken pale and the sauce flatter.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, onion, garlic, coconut, milk, pepper):

  1. Cuminfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Corianderfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, onion, garlic, coconut, milk, 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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