Skip to main content
Main

Ol-curry

A curry of a large ol vegetable and potatoes, simmered with turmeric, coriander, cumin, pepper, red chillies, panch phoron, cassia leaves, and garam masala.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Ol-curry

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ol

  1. Peel the skin off the ol and cut it into large pieces.

  2. Boil the ol pieces in water with a few drops of lemon juice, then drain them.

  3. Brown the ol pieces in oil or ghee and set them aside.

Make the curry

  1. Brown the potatoes in oil.

  2. Add water, turmeric, coriander, pepper, cumin, red chillies, and salt to the browned potatoes, then bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Add the browned ol to the boiling mixture.

Season and serve

  1. Season the curry with oil or ghee heated with panch phoron, cassia leaves, and red chillies.

  2. Add ghee and powdered garam masala before serving.

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

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

  3. Lemon + coriandertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,498 recipes

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

  4. Turmeric + coriandertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,253 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Ol
Forms the main body of the curry, absorbing spices and becoming tender when simmered.
Potatoes
Browning adds color and savory flavor, while their starch gives the curry body as it simmers.
Powdered turmeric
Gives the curry its yellow color and a warm, earthy flavor.
Cumin
Adds warm, earthy aroma that deepens the flavor of the curry.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, ghee, turmeric, coriander, pepper, cumin, cassia):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, ghee, turmeric, coriander, pepper, cumin, cassia. 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.

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipes