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Chicken Curry

A curry of chicken pieces simmered in ghee with spices and gravy, served with fried potato slices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Chicken Curry

Why it works: Coriander and turmeric match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,253 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Chicken Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curry

  1. Warm the ghee in a saucepan.

  2. Add the ground onion and spices, and brown them.

  3. Add the chicken pieces to the saucepan and pour the gravy over them.

  4. Simmer slowly for 2 hours, adding more water if necessary.

Serve

  1. Garnish with fried potato slices before serving.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Coriander + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,253 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Potato + coriandertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,213 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-decenal (green, must).

  4. Onion + turmerictop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,913 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Potato + turmerictop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together836 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Fowl
Main protein; becomes tender during the long slow simmer.
Ghee
Fat that carries the spices and gives the sauce richness.
Ground onion
Adds body and sweetness to the sauce as it browns.
Potatoes
Fried until brown to make a crisp garnish that contrasts with the soft curry.

The step that matters

Browning the ground onion and spices. Frying the onion and spices in ghee until browned develops deeper flavour and removes the raw taste of the spices. Cooking them too briefly or too hot can leave the curry tasting flat or bitter.

Swap the poppy seed

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, ghee, onion, coriander, turmeric):

  1. Cuminfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Poppy seedthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, ghee, onion, coriander, turmeric. 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.

More chicken curry recipes

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