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Chicken Curry

A chicken curry made with onions, sweet pepper, butter, flour, curry powder, and chicken broth, served over plain boiled rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Chicken Curry

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 ↓

Chicken Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the chicken

  1. Boil the chicken with the onions and sweet pepper until cooked.

  2. Drain the chicken and fry it in butter until browned.

Make the sauce

  1. Add flour and curry powder to the butter in the pan.

  2. Pour the chicken broth over the flour and curry mixture, stirring until it reaches a boil.

Finish and serve

  1. Pour the sauce over the chicken and simmer for 15 minutes.

  2. Serve with plain boiled rice.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  3. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Pepper + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Young chicken
Provides the main protein, which firms as it cooks and carries the curry sauce.
Butter
Fat that browns the chicken and carries the curry flavour into the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the broth into a smooth sauce as it cooks with the butter.
Curry powder
Supplies the spice aroma and flavour that defines the dish.
Chicken broth
Liquid base that hydrates the flour and forms the body of the sauce.
Sweet pepper
Adds mild sweetness and vegetable body to the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Stirring the broth into the flour and curry mixture. Flour needs to be stirred continuously as liquid is added, or it forms lumps instead of a smooth sauce. Bringing it to a boil fully activates the starch so the sauce thickens.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, pepper, butter, flour, rice):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper, butter, flour, rice. 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.

More chicken curry recipes

with Rice 14Indian 9East Indian 5Whole 5Coconut 4Anglo-Indian 3 See all 164 →

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