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Chicken, Curried

A chicken curry cooked with coconut, apple, chutney, and curry spices, served over rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Chicken, Curried

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the chicken and onion

  1. Divide the chicken into neat joints.

  2. Fry the chicken lightly in hot butter.

  3. Remove the chicken from the pan.

  4. Add the minced onion and fry for 2-3 minutes without browning.

Make the sauce

  1. Add the flour and curry powder, and stir.

  2. Cook for a few minutes.

  3. Pour in the stock and stir until boiling.

  4. Return the chicken to the pan.

  5. Add the curry paste, coconut, chutney, sliced apple, lemon juice, and salt.

  6. Cover and cook gently for about 30 minutes or until the chicken is tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Arrange the chicken neatly.

  2. Add the cream to the sauce.

  3. Strain the sauce over the chicken.

  4. Serve the cooked rice separately.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Chicken + coconuttop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together808 recipes

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

  4. Butter + coconuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 as it simmers gently in the sauce.
Butter
Carries the fat for frying, adding richness and helping the chicken and onion take on color.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce when cooked briefly with the fat and curry powder.
Curry powder
Supplies the main spiced aroma and flavor that defines the curry.
Stock
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, carrying flavor and keeping the chicken moist as it cooks.
Cream
Stirred into the sauce at the end to add richness and a softer, smoother texture.

The step that matters

Fry the onion without browning it. Onion that browns turns bitter and dark, which dulls the sauce's color and flavor. Gentle frying softens it and sweetens it while keeping the curry pale and mild.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, butter, flour, coconut, lemon, cream, onion):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, flour, coconut, lemon, cream, onion. 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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