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Malay Curry

A chicken curry made with almonds, butter, lemon, curry powder, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and shallot share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 75 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Malay Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the paste

  1. Fry the almonds in butter until slightly browned.

  2. Pound the almonds with lemon rind and shallot to a smooth paste.

Cook the curry

  1. Fry the chicken pieces in the same butter until slightly browned.

  2. Remove the chicken and mix curry powder and salt into the butter.

  3. Gradually add chicken broth and return the chicken to the pan.

  4. Add cream and lemon juice, then let it stew gently for 45 minutes.

  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. Almond + shallottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together75 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + shallottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,523 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, 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; browning in butter adds savory flavor before stewing.
Almonds
Pounded into a paste that thickens the sauce and adds body and nutty flavor.
Butter
Carries the curry powder and browns the chicken and almonds, adding richness.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the sauce.
Curry powder
Supplies the spice aroma and flavor that defines the dish.
Chicken broth
Forms the liquid base of the sauce that the chicken stews in.

The step that matters

Stewing gently after adding cream and lemon juice. Cream can curdle or separate if it boils hard, so it should simmer gently. Lemon juice is acidic and can also cause dairy to curdle, so it is added with the cream rather than earlier.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Cherryfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, butter, shallot, chicken, cream. 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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