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Chicken Curry

A chicken curry made with butter, onions, flour, curry powder, tomatoes, and milk, simmered until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Chicken Curry

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Chicken Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the chicken

  1. Season the chicken pieces with salt and pepper, dredge in flour, and brown in hot butter.

  2. In the same pan, fry the sliced onion in the remaining butter until colored but not browned.

Make the sauce

  1. Mix 1 tablespoon of flour, sugar, and curry powder, and brown them in the butter.

  2. Slowly add water or stock and strained tomatoes (or chopped apple), and season with salt and pepper.

  3. Pour the sauce over the chicken and simmer for 1 hour or until tender.

  4. Add hot milk or cream, boil for 1 minute, and serve with boiled rice.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Chicken + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,031 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  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 through long simmering in the sauce.
Flour
Dredging coats the chicken so it browns well, and the flour browned in butter thickens the sauce.
Butter
Carries heat for browning the chicken and onion and adds richness to the sauce.
Onion
Sweetens and builds savory depth as it cooks gently in butter without browning.
Curry powder
Adds the spiced aroma that defines the dish once browned in butter.
Strained tomatoes
Add acidity and body to the sauce, or chopped sour apple can supply similar tartness.
Milk or cream
Adds richness and a mellow, creamy texture to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Add the milk or cream at the end. Dairy added to a boiling sauce can curdle or separate. Adding it off the simmer and boiling only briefly keeps the sauce smooth and creamy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper, flour, butter, sugar, tomato, milk. 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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