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Curry of Chickens

A chicken curry with butter, eschalots, herbs, onion, mace, ham, mushrooms, apple, curry powder, turmeric, flour, consommé, served over dry rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,172 recipes. Both carry 1-butyl acetate, which smells fruity, banana. The science ↓

Curry of Chickens

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a stewpan and add the chicken, eschalots, herb bundle, onion, mace, ham, mushroom trimmings, and apple.

  2. Sweat the mixture over medium heat for a few minutes.

  3. Stir in the curry powder and turmeric, allowing them to sweat together.

  4. Add the flour and keep stirring to create a roux.

  5. Dilute the roux with the chicken consommé and bring to a boil.

  6. Reduce heat and let it simmer until the chicken is cooked through.

  7. Skim off any fat, remove the chicken pieces and herb bundle, and strain the sauce.

Finish and serve

  1. Trim the chicken pieces, mix them with the sauce, and keep warm in a bain-marie.

  2. Serve the chicken with small heaps of dry rice or in a rice casserole.

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 + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  2. Clove + appletop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, 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; cooking it in the sauce lets its flavor enrich the curry.
Butter
Carries the spices and sweats the aromatics, adding richness to the sauce.
Flour
Forms a roux with the butter that thickens the sauce.
Curry powder
Supplies the main spiced, aromatic flavor of the dish.
Chicken consommé
Serves as the liquid that dilutes the roux and gives the sauce its body and savoury depth.
Ham
Adds savoury, salty depth to the sauce base.

The step that matters

Making the roux. Flour must be stirred with the butter and spices until it is evenly mixed and cooked before the liquid goes in. Stirring prevents lumps, and adding liquid too soon leaves a raw floury taste and uneven thickening.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, onion, clove, ham, mushroom, apple. 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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