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Khuttah Carree, or Acid Vegetable Curry

A vegetable curry made with assorted vegetables, tamarind water, jaggery, and mustard oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Artichoke and sweet potato share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Khuttah Carree, or Acid Vegetable Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut vegetables into large pieces.

  2. Boil vegetables in water with ground onions, turmeric, chilis, garlic, and coriander seed.

Add the tamarind and tempering

  1. Prepare tamarind water, sweeten with jaggery, strain, and add to boiled vegetables with fresh chilis.

  2. In a separate pot, heat mustard oil until bubbling.

  3. Fry onion seeds in the oil until fragrant, then pour over the boiled vegetables.

  4. Cover the pot and simmer for 15-20 minutes until ready.

Serve

  1. Serve cold.

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. Artichoke + sweet potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together12 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Artichoke + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together41 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  4. Sweet potato + turmerictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together141 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Potato + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tamarind water
Provides the sour acidity that defines the curry.
Potatoes
Hold their shape during boiling and add starch that thickens the broth.
Mustard oil
Carries fat-soluble aroma and flavour when heated into the finishing tempering.
Jaggery
Adds sweetness that balances the sourness of the tamarind.
Onion seeds
Release aromatic compounds when fried in hot oil.

The step that matters

Frying the onion seeds in mustard oil. Mustard oil must be hot enough to bubble before the seeds go in. Too cool and the seeds stay bland; too hot and they scorch, turning bitter. Pour the oil over the vegetables promptly once the seeds are fragrant.

Swap the pumpkin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, artichoke, sweet potato, carrot, tomato, onion, turmeric):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Pumpkinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, artichoke, sweet potato, carrot, tomato, onion, turmeric. 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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