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Dry Curry of Cold Chicken, Etc

A dry curry made with cold poultry, ghee, onion, garlic, chillies, ginger, curry powder, coconut, lemon juice, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Dry Curry of Cold Chicken, Etc

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curry base

  1. In a shallow sauté pan, heat the ghee over medium heat.

  2. Add the chopped onion and garlic, frying lightly for 2-3 minutes.

  3. Add the chillies and ginger, mixing well.

  4. Stir in the curry powder and desiccated coconut, and continue frying for another 2-3 minutes.

Add the chicken and serve

  1. Add the jointed cold poultry, mixing lightly to warm through.

  2. Season with lemon juice and coarse sea salt to taste.

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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

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

  3. Ginger + coconuttop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,168 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Garlic + gingertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,402 recipes

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

  5. Garlic + chickentop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,850 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

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

What each ingredient does

Ghee
Carries the spices and gives the curry its rich, fatty base.
Curry powder
Supplies the main spice aroma and flavour of the dish.
Onion
Softens into a sweet base that gives the sauce body.
Desiccated coconut
Adds sweetness, a little fat and toasty flavour when fried in the spices.
Chillies
Provide heat and a sharp, fresh bite to the curry.
Poultry legs
Provide the main protein and the meat that the spiced base coats.

The step that matters

Frying the curry powder and coconut. Frying spices in fat for a few minutes releases their aromatic compounds, while burning turns them bitter. Keep the heat moderate and stir constantly.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ghee, onion, garlic, ginger, coconut, chicken):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Mangofits better
  3. Avocadofits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ghee, onion, garlic, ginger, coconut, chicken. 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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