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Indian

Curry with Crabs and Pumpkin

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Pumpkin and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and 152 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: shellfish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Step-by-step directions aren't available for this recipe.

Recipe from a historical cookbook.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Pumpkin + mustardtop 10% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together152 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  2. Turmeric + cumintop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,698 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Cumin + cassiatop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together101 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  4. Crab + shrimptop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together123 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  5. Turmeric + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together4,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the cassia

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (crab, turmeric, pumpkin, pepper, cumin, mustard, shrimp):

  1. Gingerbetter flavor fit
  2. Corianderbetter flavor fit
  3. Celerybetter flavor fit
  4. Cassiathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, turmeric, pumpkin, pepper, cumin, mustard, shrimp. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).