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A Fried Curry

A chicken curry cooked by frying the chicken and onions, then simmering with curry powder and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,814 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, sweet. The science ↓

A Fried Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Fry the chicken

  1. Heat butter in a pan and fry the chicken pieces until brown.

  2. Remove the chicken and fry the chopped onions in the same pan with a bit of butter.

  3. Add the fried onions to the chicken along with the curry powder.

Simmer in gravy

  1. Pour in enough gravy to cover the chicken and season with salt.

  2. Cover the pan and bring to a quick boil for a few minutes.

  3. Remove the cover and stir in the lemon juice.

  4. Simmer over low heat until the gravy thickens.

  5. Serve hot.

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

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

  2. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Chicken + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,092 recipes

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

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

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 and, browned first, builds savory flavour in the pan.
Onions
Soften and sweeten as they fry, adding body and savoury depth to the gravy.
Curry powder
Supplies the spice blend and aroma that define the dish's flavour.
Gravy
Provides the liquid that cooks the chicken and thickens into a sauce as it simmers.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, spiced sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer until the gravy thickens. Gravy thickens as its liquid reduces over low heat. Rushing this with high heat can scorch the bottom and leave the sauce thin, so keep it at a gentle simmer and stir.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Grapefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, onion. 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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