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Chicken Curry

A curry made with chicken, onion, garlic, ginger, curry powder, coconut milk, and salt, garnished with cilantro.

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

Why it works: Clove and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Chicken Curry

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the curry base

  1. Heat oil in a large pot over medium heat.

  2. Add chopped onion, garlic, and ginger; sauté until onion is translucent.

  3. Stir in curry powder and cook for 1 minute.

Cook and serve

  1. Add chicken pieces and cook until browned on all sides.

  2. Pour in coconut milk and season with salt.

  3. Simmer for 30 minutes until chicken is cooked through.

  4. Garnish with fresh cilantro 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. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Ginger + coconuttop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,168 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Garlic + gingertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,402 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

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 and, as it browns and simmers, flavour and a tender texture.
Onion
Softens as it cooks, adding sweetness and body to the sauce base.
Coconut milk
Adds fat and creaminess, mellowing the spices and giving the sauce a rich texture.
Curry powder
Supplies the main spice aroma, which deepens when briefly cooked in the hot fat.

The step that matters

Browning the chicken. Searing the chicken until browned on all sides builds flavour through the Maillard reaction. Pale, crowded chicken stews instead of browning, leaving the sauce flat.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, onion, garlic, ginger, coconut, milk):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, onion, garlic, ginger, coconut, milk. 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

with Rice 14Indian 9East Indian 5Whole 5Coconut 4Anglo-Indian 3 See all 164 →

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