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Chitchkee Curry

A vegetable curry with onions, butter, curry powder, and gravy served over rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,433 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Chitchkee Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curry base

  1. In a skillet, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the sliced onions and fry until browned.

  3. Mix the curry powder with a little gravy to form a paste, then stir it into the skillet.

Cook and serve

  1. Add the chopped vegetables and season with salt and pepper.

  2. Simmer until the vegetables are thoroughly cooked.

  3. Serve hot 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.

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 + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Onion
Softens and browns in the butter, adding sweetness and savory depth to the base.
Curry powder
Supplies the main spice aroma and flavor of the dish when bloomed in fat and liquid.
Butter
Carries the spices and onion, adding richness and helping the onion brown.
Gravy
Turns the curry powder into a paste and provides the liquid that moistens the vegetables.
Cold vegetables
Make up the body of the dish; simmering cooks them through in the sauce.

The step that matters

Frying the curry powder paste. Curry powder mixed with a little liquid before it goes into the pan keeps it from clumping and scorching, so its flavor spreads evenly through the sauce.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, rice. 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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