Why it works: Pepper and lemon 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 Pimekto
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fowl
Rub the fowl joints with curry powder and cayenne pepper.
Stew and serve
Stew the fowl gently in the broth until very tender.
Add the whole rice to the pot with the fowl.
Before serving, mix in lemon juice and salt.
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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Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together27,047 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Pepper + ricetop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,379 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,366 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
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Veal + lemontop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together4,580 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Pepper + vealtop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together10,049 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Fowl
- Provides the main protein, which becomes tender through slow, gentle stewing.
- Curry powder
- Supplies the main spice flavour and aroma that the fowl absorbs when rubbed.
- Whole rice
- Absorbs the seasoned broth as it cooks, adding body and starch to the dish.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the rich, spiced stew just before serving.
The step that matters
Stewing the fowl gently until very tender. Gentle, low heat lets collagen in the connective tissue slowly break down into gelatin, making the meat tender. Boiling hard toughens the muscle fibres and can leave the meat stringy.
“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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