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Curried Chicken

A dish of cooked chicken mixed with chutney, celery, and brown sauce served over brown rice, accompanied by buttered corn muffins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,769 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

Curried Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cook the brown rice according to package instructions.

  2. In a pan, combine cooked chicken, chutney, stewed celery, and brown sauce.

  3. Heat the mixture until warmed through.

Serve

  1. Serve the curried chicken over brown rice.

  2. Accompany with corn muffins spread with butter or margarine.

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. Chicken + ricetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,769 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  2. Rice + corntop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Rice + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Celery + corntop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together920 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  5. Chicken + corntop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,666 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked chicken
Provides the main protein and the bulk of the dish.
Brown rice
Forms the starchy base that holds the saucy chicken mixture.
Chutney
Adds sweetness and acidity that balance the curry flavour.
Brown sauce
Adds savoury depth and moisture to the chicken mixture.
Corn muffins
Offer a soft, slightly sweet side that pairs with the sauce.

The step that matters

Heat the mixture until warmed through. The chicken is already cooked, so gentle, even heating only needs to warm it. Overheating or boiling dries out the meat and makes it tough, while thorough warming keeps it tender and safe to serve.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, rice, sauce, corn, butter):

  1. Tarragonfits about as well
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Garlicfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, rice, sauce, corn, butter. 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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