Why it works: Chicken and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,902 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓
Selim’s Curries
Ingredients
Directions
Melt the butter in a stewpan over medium heat.
Add the meat and stir with a wooden spoon.
Mix in the curry paste thoroughly and stir for 5 to 10 minutes until cooked.
For a gravy curry, add boiling water after mixing in the paste and stir for an additional 10 to 12 minutes until the sauce is creamy.
For salmon or lobster, prepare quickly to keep them firm.
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.
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Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,902 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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 firms and cooks through as it is stirred in the butter and paste.
- Curry paste
- Supplies the spice flavour that defines the dish and coats the meat as it cooks.
- Butter
- Carries the curry paste's aromatic compounds and gives the sauce a rich, smooth mouthfeel.
The step that matters
Mixing in the curry paste. Spices bloom best when fried in fat, but if the paste scorches over heat it turns bitter. Stirring it thoroughly and keeping the heat moderate lets the flavours develop evenly.
“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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