Name: Spi Coriander Seeds
Ingredients: 453 g coriander seeds; 2 lbs salt; 1 oz powdered sage; 1 oz long pepper; ½ oz cloves; ¼ oz mace; ¼ oz coriander seeds; 2 tablespoons bay rum

Why it works: Sage and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Spi Coriander Seeds

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spices

Pound coriander seeds in a mortar and pass through a fine sieve.
Pound any large pieces that remain, pass through the sieve again, and store in tightly corked bottles.

Mix and bottle

Moisten the salt with bay rum, dry it, and mix with the ground spices.
Bottle the mixture and use as needed.

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.

Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,388 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Sage + clovetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together731 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Coriander + peppertop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,949 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Coriander + sagetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together75 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Coriander seeds: Provides the main aromatic flavour of the blend.
Salt: Seasons the blend and adds savoury flavour to the spices.
Bay rum: Moistens the salt so the spices are evenly distributed in the blend.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (coriander, sage, pepper, clove, rum):

Allspicefits better
Thymefits better
Cinnamonfits better
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against coriander, sage, pepper, clove, rum. 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.