Why it works: Butter and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 42,912 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓
Kidgrie, or Dry Curry
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Cut the fowl into walnut-sized pieces.
Cook the fowl and onions
In a stewpan, heat a little lard and stir in the fowl until nearly cooked.
Slice the onions thinly and place them in another stewpan with a little lard or butter.
Cook the onions until nicely browned, then add more butter or lard and the curry powder or paste; stir for a few minutes.
Combine and serve
Combine the contents of both saucepans and stir until the meat is fully cooked.
Add the water and let it stand for a short time before serving.
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.
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Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together42,912 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Fowl
- Provides the main meat, which cooks through in the spiced mixture.
- Onions
- Browning them builds sweetness and depth that form the base of the curry.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour through the onions and curry.
- Lard
- Adds fat for frying the fowl and onions, giving richness and browning.
- Curry powder or paste
- Supplies the spice and aroma that define the dish.
The step that matters
Browning the onions. Onions that are only softened stay pale and bland. Cooking them until nicely browned develops deeper, sweeter flavour through the Maillard reaction, which gives the curry its body.
“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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