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Indian Curry-powder

A blend of coriander, poppy, ginger, mustard, chillies, and cinnamon, dry and ground into a spice mix.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Indian Curry-powder

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spices

  1. Dry all seeds in a cool oven overnight.

  2. Pound together coriander seeds, poppy seeds, ground ginger, mustard seeds, red chillies, and cinnamon.

Store

  1. Store the mixture tightly corked in a bottle.

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. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Coriander + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Coriander + cinnamontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,635 recipes

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

  4. Mustard + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Coriander + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together967 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 citrusy, warm aroma that forms the base of the blend.
Red chillies
Supply the heat, from capsaicin, that gives the powder its bite.
Ground ginger
Adds a warm, pungent aroma and a peppery note.
Mustard seeds
Contribute a sharp, pungent flavour to the blend.
Cinnamon
Adds sweet, woody warmth to the aroma of the blend.

The step that matters

Dry the seeds thoroughly in the cool oven. Any remaining moisture in the seeds can cause mould during storage and dull the aroma. Fully dry seeds grind more easily and keep their flavour longer in a tightly sealed bottle.

Swap the poppy seed

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (coriander, ginger, mustard, cinnamon):

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Cuminfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Poppy seedthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against coriander, ginger, mustard, cinnamon. 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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