Why it works: Onion and chicken 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 ↓
Currie Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Make the curry base
In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.
Add the minced onions and dredge with flour; fry until light brown, being careful not to burn them.
Gradually mix in the curry powder until it forms a paste.
Stir in the gravy soup and mix well; boil gently until flavored with curry.
Cook the chicken and tamarind
Strain the soup into another saucepan and add the chicken pieces.
Stew slowly for 1 hour.
In ½ pint of the soup, add the tamarinds and stew to separate the stalks and stones.
Strain the tamarind mixture into the soup and add salt.
Boil for 15 minutes before serving.
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.
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Onion + chickentop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,814 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
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Onion + tamarindtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together426 recipes
Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + tamarindtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together111 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together42,912 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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
- Butter
- Carries the onions and curry powder, adding richness and helping them fry evenly.
- Onions
- Soften and brown in the butter, adding sweetness and a savoury base for the soup.
- Curry powder
- Provides the main spice flavour, blooming into a paste with the fat and flour.
- Gravy soup
- Forms the liquid body of the soup that the curry flavour is stirred into.
- Chicken
- Adds meat that becomes tender during the long slow stew.
- Tamarinds
- Adds tart acidity that balances the richness and spice of the soup.
The step that matters
Frying the onions. Onions cooked past light brown turn bitter and can scorch, which then carries into the whole soup. Keeping the heat moderate and stirring lets the sugars brown gently and gives a sweet, mellow base.
Swap the tamarind
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, butter, flour, chicken):
- Avocadofits better
- Coconutfits better
- Tamarindthe original
- Grapefits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter, flour, 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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