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A Chicken Curry

A curry of chicken pieces simmered with onions, butter, ginger, pepper, turmeric, cream, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and turmeric match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,776 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

A Chicken Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Skin the chickens and cut them into pieces as for a fricassee.

  2. Wash the pieces in water.

  3. Stew them in 1 quart of water for 5 minutes.

  4. Strain the water.

Make the curry

  1. Place the chickens in a dish.

  2. Fry the onions in 2 ounces of butter with the chickens until browned.

  3. Mix the ginger, pepper, turmeric, and salt, then sprinkle the mixture over the chickens.

  4. Pour the strained liquid back into the pan.

  5. Let it stew for 30 minutes.

  6. Add the cream and lemon juice, ensuring they do not curdle.

  7. Bring to a gentle boil.

  8. Serve.

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. Ginger + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  3. Turmeric + lemontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,192 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Ginger + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Pepper + turmerictop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Chickens
Provide the main protein, which becomes tender through gentle stewing.
Onions
Break down while frying in butter, adding sweetness and a browned base to the sauce.
Butter
Carries the fat that fries the onions and chicken, adding richness and browning.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, mellow body to the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the spices and richness.

The step that matters

Adding the cream and lemon juice. Acid can curdle cream when the two meet, especially at high heat. Adding them to a gently simmering sauce and keeping the boil gentle helps the cream stay smooth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, butter, ginger, pepper, turmeric, cream, lemon):

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, ginger, pepper, turmeric, cream, lemon. 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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