Skip to main content
Main

Curry Powder

A blend of roasted and ground spices including coriander, mustard, cumin, pepper, chillies, turmeric, cloves, cardamom, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cumin and turmeric 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 ↓

Curry Powder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spices

  1. Roast the coriander seeds on an iron plate (tawa) until fragrant, then crush and pound them finely.

  2. Slightly roast and pound the mustard seeds, cumin, and black pepper separately.

  3. Roast and pound the turmeric and chillies.

  4. Pound the cloves, cinnamon, and cardamoms.

Combine and store

  1. Mix all the ground spices together and store in well-corked bottles.

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. Cumin + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,698 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Coriander + cumintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,866 recipes

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

  3. Turmeric + cardamomtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together667 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Coriander + cardamomtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together872 recipes

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

  5. Clove + cardamomtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,114 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Coriander seeds
Provide the main earthy, citrus-like aroma that forms the base of the blend.
Dry red chillies
Supply heat and colour to the powder.
Mustard seeds
Add a sharp, pungent flavour when roasted and ground.
Turmeric
Gives the blend its yellow colour and earthy bitterness.

The step that matters

Roasting the spices separately. Each spice needs a different roasting time and degree, because seeds vary in moisture and oil content. Roasting until just fragrant develops flavour, while overroasting turns them bitter and scorches the aroma.

Swap the poppy seed

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (coriander, mustard, cumin, pepper, turmeric, clove, cardamom):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Saffronfits better
  4. Poppy seedthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against coriander, mustard, cumin, pepper, turmeric, clove, cardamom. 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 curry powder recipes

Bengal 13Delhi 3Indian 3Madras 3 See all 102 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes