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A Dry Curry , or Curry Without Gravy

A dry chicken curry made by rubbing a paste of curry powder, turmeric, garlic, and water onto chicken and cooking in butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Turmeric and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,876 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

A Dry Curry , or Curry Without Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spice paste

  1. In a mortar, combine curry powder, turmeric, a little water, and garlic, then beat well to form a paste.

  2. Rub the paste over each piece of chicken.

  3. Add salt and a little more water to the chicken.

Cook

  1. In a pan, melt the butter and add the chicken.

  2. Cook until the chicken is done, stirring occasionally.

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. Turmeric + clovetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,876 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Turmeric + garlictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,363 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  3. Garlic + chickentop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,850 recipes

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

  4. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Butter + chickentop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Is the main protein, cooked through in the pan until done.
Curry powder
Provides the main spice flavour, carried into the chicken by the paste.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the chicken cook in the pan without sticking.
Turmeric powder
Adds earthy flavour and a yellow colour to the coating.

The step that matters

Cook until the chicken is done, stirring occasionally. Chicken must reach a fully cooked internal temperature for safety. Stirring helps the paste cook evenly and keeps the spices from scorching on the pan.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turmeric, garlic, butter, chicken):

  1. Cuminfits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turmeric, garlic, butter, 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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