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Fried Chicken a LA Malabar

Fried chicken seasoned with curry powder, served with fried onion bits and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,814 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, sweet. The science ↓

Fried Chicken a LA Malabar

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Cut up the chicken and wipe it dry.

  2. Rub the chicken with curry powder and a little coarse sea salt.

  3. Fry the chicken in butter until light brown.

Fry the onions

  1. Slice the onions into thin rings, then cut the rings into bits about half an inch long.

  2. Fry the onion bits gently in clarified butter until they are dry and a delicate yellow-brown.

  3. Mix a little coarse sea salt with the fried onions.

Serve

  1. Strew the onion mixture over the fried chicken and serve with lemon.

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

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

  2. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

  4. Chicken + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,092 recipes

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

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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 browns in butter to develop a golden, savoury crust.
Butter
Conducts heat for frying and adds richness and browning to the chicken.
Onions
Sliced and fried slowly until dry, they add sweetness and a crisp, savoury topping.
Clarified butter
Fries the onions at a high smoke point, allowing gentle browning without burning.
Curry powder
Coats the chicken with aromatic spices that flavour the meat as it fries.

The step that matters

Fry the onion bits gently in clarified butter. Frying slowly lets moisture evaporate and sugars brown evenly; high heat would scorch the onions before they dry, leaving a bitter taste.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Grapefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, onion. 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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