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Another Receipt for a Curry

A chicken curry served with rice, flavored with curry powder, onions, garlic, and a creamy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Another Receipt for a Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rice

  1. Wash the rice thoroughly.

  2. Boil 2 quarts of water in a pot.

  3. Add the rice and boil for 12 minutes if using Indian rice, or 14 minutes for other types.

  4. One minute before finishing, add 1 tablespoon of salt.

  5. Drain the rice in a colander and let it sit to remove excess water.

  6. Place a napkin in a pan. Transfer the rice onto the napkin, then fold the corner of the napkin over the rice to absorb moisture.

  7. Transfer the rice to a serving dish.

Make the curry

  1. Brown the cut-up chicken in oil.

  2. Fry the sliced onions until golden.

  3. Combine the browned chicken, fried onions, and curry powder in a stew pan.

  4. Cover with water or veal gravy.

  5. Add the garlic.

  6. Simmer on low heat for 1 hour or until the chicken is very tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Mix the cream, flour, butter, lemon juice, and salt in a bowl.

  2. Add the cream mixture to the stew.

  3. Bring to a gentle boil.

  4. Remove from heat.

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

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Rice + chickentop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,769 recipes

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

  3. Chicken + garlictop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,850 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

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

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

  5. Rice + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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 becomes tender through long, slow simmering in liquid.
Onions
Frying until golden adds sweetness and savory depth to the sauce.
Curry powder
Supplies the spice blend that gives the dish its characteristic aroma and flavor.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, mellow texture to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce when combined with the cream and butter.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a silky mouthfeel in the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the cream mixture to the stew. Cream and flour can curdle or turn lumpy if added to very hot liquid too quickly. Bringing the stew only to a gentle boil, rather than a hard boil, helps keep the sauce smooth and cohesive.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, chicken, onion, veal, garlic, cream, flour):

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Cuminfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, chicken, onion, veal, garlic, cream, flour. 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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