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Drink

Pepper Water Sour

A spiced pepper and pulse infusion brewed with ghee, tamarind, and lime, served as a sour drink.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Cumin and lime match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,216 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Pepper Water Sour

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the paste

  1. Fry black pepper, red pulse, and carapala leaves in ghee in an iron ladle.

  2. Grind the mixture into a fine paste.

Make the sour

  1. Mix in tamarind pulp and fresh water, then bring to a boil 2-3 times.

  2. Fry mustard, cumin, and fenugreek seeds in ghee, then add to the boiling mixture.

Add the second variation

  1. For a second variation, fry another ½ ounce of black pepper and red pulse in ghee.

  2. Grind and mix with water, then add salt and lime juice.

  3. Boil as before, adding fried cumin, mustard, fenugreek, and carapala leaves.

  4. If desired, add moringa fruit or wood apple shells for fragrance.

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. Cumin + limetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,216 recipes

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

  2. Tamarind + fenugreektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together59 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  3. Tamarind + cumintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together184 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Cumin + fenugreektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together178 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Mustard + fenugreektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together137 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Black pepper
Provides the main pungent heat and aroma that defines the sour.
Red pulse
Adds body and earthy flavour to the paste, thickening the broth slightly when ground.
Ghee
Carries the spices' flavour and gives a rich, fatty aroma when frying.
Tamarind pulp
Supplies the sourness and tang that gives the sour its character.
Mustard seeds
Release nutty, pungent aroma when fried in fat, adding a finishing flavour.
Cumin seeds
Release warm, earthy aroma when fried in fat, adding depth to the broth.

The step that matters

Frying the seeds in ghee. Mustard, cumin and fenugreek seeds need brief frying in hot fat to release their aromatic oils. Overheating them can scorch and turn them bitter, so they should be fried just until fragrant.

Swap the apple

The recipe marks apple as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, ghee, tamarind, mustard, cumin, fenugreek, lime):

  1. Mangofits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, ghee, tamarind, mustard, cumin, fenugreek, lime. 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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