Skip to main content
Bread

Mr. Arnott’s Currie Powder

A spice blend of turmeric, coriander, cumin, fenugreek, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Turmeric and fenugreek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 229 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Mr. Arnott’s Currie Powder

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Dry the seeds well.

  2. Pound the seeds into a fine powder.

  3. Sift the powder to ensure a smooth texture.

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 + fenugreektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together229 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Coriander + fenugreektop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together236 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turmeric + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Coriander + peppertop 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

Turmeric
Gives the powder its yellow color and an earthy, slightly bitter flavor.
Coriander seed
Provides the main citrusy, floral aroma and the bulk of the blend's flavor.
Cumin seed
Adds a warm, earthy aroma that rounds out the blend.
Fenugreek seed
Contributes a bitter, slightly sweet aroma that gives curry its characteristic note.
Cayenne pepper
Adds heat, which can be adjusted to taste.

The step that matters

Dry the seeds well.. Residual moisture makes the seeds harder to grind into a fine powder and can cause the powder to clump and spoil sooner in storage.

Swap the fenugreek

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

  1. Cuminfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Fenugreekthe original

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

CornbreadCornbread345 recipesBread PuddingBread Pudding336 recipesMilk Bread RollsMilk Bread Rolls242 recipesPotato BreadPotato Bread124 recipes