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Currie, or Pepper Water

A chicken curry made with curry powder, veal broth, onions, butter, tamarind, and lemon, thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Currie, or Pepper Water

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Blanch and wash the chicken pieces, then place them in a small stewpot.

  2. Add curry powder and 1 cup of veal broth, and simmer until half cooked.

Make the sauce

  1. Fry the sliced onions in butter until nearly done and browned.

  2. Add the fried onions to the chicken along with the remaining veal broth, bay leaf, lemon juice, and tamarind juice.

  3. Boil until the chicken is nearly done, then remove it to another stewpan.

  4. Rub the cooking ingredients through a fine cloth and add to the chicken.

  5. Mix in flour and water to thicken, then bring to a boil.

Finish and serve

  1. Season with cayenne pepper and salt, skim off any fat, and serve in a bowl.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + tamarindtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together170 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Tamarind + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together207 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Onion + tamarindtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together426 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Forms the main body of the dish and gives it its savory meat flavor.
Curry powder
Supplies the dish's main spice aroma and warm, earthy flavor.
Onions
Break down when fried and browned, adding sweetness and body to the sauce.
Butter
Carries fat for frying the onions and adds richness and browning.
Tamarind juice
Adds a tart, acidic note that balances the rich spices.
Flour
Thickens the liquid so the sauce clings to the chicken.

The step that matters

Boil until the chicken is nearly done, then remove it to another stewpan.. Chicken left too long keeps cooking and turns dry and tough. Removing it once nearly done lets it finish gently in the sauce without overcooking.

Swap the tamarind

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

  1. Limefits better
  2. Avocadofits about as well
  3. Tamarindthe original
  4. Coconutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, veal, onion, butter, lemon, flour, pepper. 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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