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Curried Chickens

A stew of chicken pieces simmered with butter, herbs, spices, ham, mushrooms, apple, and curry, served over rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 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 ↓

Curried Chickens

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a stewpan, melt the butter and sauté the shallots or onions for a few minutes.

  2. Add the chicken pieces, sweet herbs, cloves, mace, ham, mushroom trimmings, and apple.

  3. Stir in the curry powder, flour, and veal broth; bring to a boil.

  4. Reduce heat and simmer until the chicken is tender.

  5. Remove the chicken, skim the sauce, and strain it through a fine sieve.

Finish and serve

  1. Return the chicken to the sauce, keep warm in a bain-marie.

  2. Serve with boiled rice, ensuring the rice is fluffy and 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 + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

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

  2. Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

  3. Shallot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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 becomes tender as it simmers slowly in the sauce.
Butter
Carries the aromatics and blooms the curry flavour as it sizzles with the shallots.
Flour
Thickens the sauce so it clings to the chicken and rice.
Curry powder
Supplies the main spiced aroma and flavour of the dish.
Shallots or onions
Build a sweet, savoury base as they soften in the butter.
Apple
Adds a mild sweetness that balances the spices.

The step that matters

Simmering the chicken until tender. Simmering gently keeps the meat juicy while the connective tissue softens. Boiling hard toughens the muscle fibres and can break the sauce, so keep the heat low and steady.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, shallot, 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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