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Curried Dishes

A curry dish made with chicken or veal, butter, curry powder, rice, flour, and cooking liquid.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,769 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

Curried Dishes

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the meat

  1. Boil the meat until tender.

  2. Separate the joints.

Make the curry

  1. Melt the butter in a stew pan.

  2. Add the meat.

  3. Pour enough of the cooking liquid to cover the meat.

  4. Let it stew for 20 minutes.

  5. In a bowl, mix the curry powder, boiled rice, flour, melted butter, cooking liquid, and salt.

  6. Pour the mixture over the meat.

  7. Let it stew for an additional 10 minutes.

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 + ricetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,769 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Chicken + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Rice + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,481 recipes

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

  5. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken or veal
Provides the main protein, which becomes tender and flavourful as it simmers in the liquid.
Boiled rice
Thickens the sauce as its starch softens and releases into the liquid, adding body.
Flour
Thickens the sauce, giving it a smooth, cohesive texture.
Curry powder
Supplies the main spice aroma and flavour of the curry.

The step that matters

Pour the mixture over the meat and stew gently. The flour and rice mixture can clump if added to liquid unevenly, and it thickens as it heats. Stewing gently at a low simmer lets the starches thicken the sauce evenly without scorching on the bottom of the pan.

“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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