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Sour Dal

A lentil soup cooked with turmeric, salt, oil, and sour ingredients such as green mangoes or tamarind.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Turmeric and tamarind match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 299 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Sour Dal

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the dal with turmeric and salt until cooked.

  2. Heat oil in a pan and slightly brown the sour ingredients, peeling and crushing them as needed.

  3. Pour the boiled dal liquid into the pan and stir well.

  4. Boil for a few more minutes, then remove from heat. Add sugar if desired.

  5. Serve hot.

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 + tamarindtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together299 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Mango + tamarindtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Turmeric + mangotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together256 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Turmeric + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Mango + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together488 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Dal
Provides the main body and thickness of the soup as it cooks down.
Sour ingredients
Supply the acidity that gives the dish its sour flavour.
Oil
Carries flavour and helps lightly brown the sour ingredients in the pan.

Swap the turmeric

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mango, tamarind, olive, sugar):

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Gingerfits about as well
  3. Cuminfits about as well
  4. Turmericthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mango, tamarind, olive, sugar. 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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