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Madras Plain Pepper Water

A spicy pepper water soup made with tamarind, spices, and optional coconut milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Turmeric and cumin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,698 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Madras Plain Pepper Water

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Squeeze out the tamarind juice to yield about 2 to 3 cups.

  2. In a pot, combine the tamarind juice, roughly ground spices, and salt.

Cook

  1. Bring the mixture to a boil and reduce it to half the quantity, then remove from heat and set aside.

  2. Strain the curry soup through coarse muslin and simmer for a few seconds before removing from heat.

Serve

  1. Serve with boiled rice or omelet.

  2. Mix in ½ cup thick coconut milk for added flavor.

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. Turmeric + cumintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,698 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Turmeric + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Cumin + tamarindtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together184 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Cumin + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,082 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

Tamarind
Provides the sour acidity that defines the soup's tangy flavour.
Dry chillies
Supply heat and a deeper, sharper pungency to the soup.
Cumin seeds
Add warm, earthy aroma when their flavour is released in the spice mix.
Ghee
Adds richness and a rounded, buttery aroma that carries the spices.
Coconut milk (in the method)
Adds fat and body, softening the sourness and heat for a smoother soup.

The step that matters

Reducing the tamarind mixture to half. Reduction concentrates the sourness, heat and salt together. Reducing too far makes the soup overly sharp, salty or intense, while stopping early leaves it thin and flat.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turmeric, cumin, clove, garlic, ginger, tamarind, ghee):

  1. Eggplantfits about as well
  2. Spinachfits about as well
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turmeric, cumin, clove, garlic, ginger, tamarind, ghee. 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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