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Pea Ghanta

A spiced pea and potato stew cooked in ghee with ginger, pepper, and garam masala.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and coriander match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,505 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Pea Ghanta

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Brown the peas and diced potatoes separately in two-thirds of the ghee.

  2. In a pot, combine the water with the ground pepper, ginger, and salt; bring to a boil.

  3. Add the peas and potatoes to the boiling mixture.

Cook and season

  1. Once well cooked, season with the remaining ghee heated with a few cassia leaves.

  2. Mix the ground coriander, sugar, and flour with the milk, then pour into the pot.

  3. Boil for a few more minutes and finish by adding the garam masala.

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 + coriandertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + coriandertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,949 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Potato + coriandertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,213 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-decenal (green, must).

  4. Peas + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,016 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Pepper + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Green peas
Provide the main body and sweet, tender bulk of the curry.
Potatoes
Soften as they cook and thicken the curry while holding their shape.
Ghee
Adds fat for browning the vegetables and carries flavour through the dish.
Flour
Thickens the sauce slightly when mixed with milk and boiled.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softens the sharpness of the spices.

The step that matters

Boiling after adding the milk mixture. Flour needs to be boiled for a few minutes to cook out its raw taste and to thicken the sauce properly. Boiling too briefly can leave the curry tasting floury and thin.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, ghee, pepper, ginger, coriander, sugar, flour):

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Cashew nutfits better
  3. Lentilsfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, ghee, pepper, ginger, coriander, sugar, flour. 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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