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Curried Fowl

A stew of fowl simmered with spices, onion, garlic, and rice, served with lemon slices and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Curried Fowl

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the fowl

  1. Place the fowl in a stewpan with water, salt, pepper, nutmeg, onion, and garlic.

  2. Simmer gently for 30 minutes, then skim the liquid.

  3. Remove the fowl, strain the liquid, and return the fowl to the saucepan.

Add the rice and serve

  1. Wash and drain the rice, then mix it with salt, pepper, lemon juice, and curry powder.

  2. Add the rice to the saucepan with the fowl and simmer until the rice is cooked and dry.

  3. Serve the fowl on a dish with the rice arranged around it.

  4. Garnish with lemon slices and chopped parsley.

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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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 and flavours the cooking liquid as it simmers.
Rice
Absorbs the cooking liquid and curry flavour, becoming the dish's starchy base.
Curry powder
Supplies the warm, spiced aroma that defines the dish.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, spiced flavours.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and body to the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Simmering the rice until dry. Rice must absorb the liquid gently at a low simmer; too much heat or too little liquid can scorch it or leave it hard, while cooking it until the liquid is absorbed lets the starch set it into separate grains.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, nutmeg, clove, garlic, rice, lemon, parsley):

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, nutmeg, clove, garlic, rice, lemon, parsley. 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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