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Chicken Malay Gravy Curry with White Pumpkin or Cucumber

A curry made with chicken, ghee, spices, coconut milk, and lemongrass, served with white pumpkin or cucumber.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Turmeric and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,776 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Chicken Malay Gravy Curry with White Pumpkin or Cucumber

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curry base

  1. Heat the ghee in a pot over medium heat.

  2. Add the ground onions and sauté until golden.

  3. Stir in the turmeric, chilies, ginger, and garlic; cook for 2 minutes.

  4. Add the chicken pieces and salt; cook until browned.

Simmer and serve

  1. Pour in the coconut milk and add lemon grass, cloves, cardamoms, and cinnamon.

  2. Simmer until the chicken is cooked through, about 30 minutes.

  3. Serve with white pumpkin or cucumber.

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. Turmeric + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Turmeric + coconuttop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,027 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  4. Ginger + coconuttop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,168 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Turmeric + garlictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,363 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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 sauce.
Ghee
Carries the spices and adds rich fat for flavour and browning of the onions.
Coconut milk
Adds fat and body, mellowing the spices into a creamy, smooth sauce.
Ground onions
Sauté to golden, adding sweetness and building the savoury base of the sauce.
Ground turmeric
Contributes colour and an earthy, warm flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer until the chicken is cooked through. Chicken must reach a safe internal temperature throughout, and simmering gently keeps the meat tender and the coconut milk from separating or scorching.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, ghee, turmeric, ginger, garlic, coconut, milk):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, ghee, turmeric, ginger, garlic, coconut, 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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