Skip to main content
Main

Curry Powder

A spice blend of ginger, mustard, pepper, coriander, turmeric, cardamom, cayenne, and cumin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Curry Powder

Ingredients

Directions

Make the powder

  1. Grind all ingredients finely.

  2. Sift the mixture.

Store and use

  1. Store in a tightly corked container.

  2. Use 1 teaspoon of the powder to season dishes.

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Ginger + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Coriander seed
Provides the bulk of the warm, citrusy flavor base of the blend.
Turmeric
Adds earthy flavor and a strong yellow color to the powder.
Ginger
Contributes warm, pungent aroma to the blend.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent heat and a slightly bitter note to the blend.
Pepper
Adds sharp, lingering heat that rounds out the blend.
Cardamom
Adds a fragrant, aromatic sweetness to the blend.

The step that matters

Grind all ingredients finely. Fine, even grinding exposes more surface area so the aromatic oils release evenly into the dish. Coarse pieces give uneven flavor and gritty texture, which is why sifting afterward helps remove any large fragments.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ginger, pepper, coriander, turmeric, cardamom, cumin. 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