Skip to main content
Main

Bengal Curry

A curry made with onions, red pepper, coriander seeds, butter, turmeric, curds, coconut, meat, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Coriander and turmeric match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,253 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Bengal Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spice paste

  1. Rub the coriander seeds smoothly in a mortar.

  2. Add and pound the red pepper and onions, mixing well.

Fry the base

  1. Melt the butter in a stewpan and slice one onion into it.

  2. Remove the onion when browned and add the turmeric.

  3. Fry until the raw flavor disappears.

Cook the curry

  1. Mix the curds with the pounded ingredients and add to the pan with the meat.

  2. Stir in the grated coconut and salt.

  3. Stir continually while browning the meat, adding water to prevent burning.

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. Coriander + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,253 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Turmeric + coconuttop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,027 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  3. Coriander + coconuttop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,039 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Pepper + turmerictop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Softens into the paste and browns in the butter, adding sweetness and body to the sauce.
Curds
Adds tanginess and a creamy, tender texture to the sauce as it cooks.
Grated coconut
Adds fat, richness and a mild sweetness to the curry.
Butter
Carries the frying of the onion and spices and helps them brown evenly.
Coriander seeds
Provide a warm, citrusy aroma once crushed into the paste.
Turmeric
Gives the curry its yellow colour and an earthy, warm flavour.

The step that matters

Fry until the raw flavor disappears. Frying the spice paste in fat cooks off raw, harsh notes and releases aromatic compounds. Stopping too early leaves the curry tasting raw and dusty.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, coriander, butter, turmeric, meat, coconut):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, coriander, butter, turmeric, meat, coconut. 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

Meat CroquettesMeat Croquettes52 recipesMeatballsMeatballs37 recipesMince MeatMince Meat37 recipesMeat CakesMeat Cakes35 recipes