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Drink

Pepper Water

A spicy beverage made by boiling pepper powder with pulses, tamarind, mustard, cumin, chillies, ghee, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Tamarind and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 149 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Pepper Water

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pepper water

  1. Combine ½ cup pepper powder, ⅛ cup red pulse, and sufficient fresh water in a pot. Boil for 3 hours.

  2. Strain the mixture. Add 2 tablespoons tamarind juice, 2 tablespoons fried mustard, 1 teaspoon cumin seeds, and 2 red chillies.

Fry and add the pulses

  1. In another pot, heat ½ cup ghee and fry ½ cup pepper and some red pulse. Grind and add to sufficient fresh water, boiling for 2 hours.

  2. Boil ⅛ cup brown pulse in water. After boiling, add it to the pepper water and boil for 5 minutes.

Finish

  1. Add fried cumin seeds, mustard, coriander seeds, coriander leaves, and 5 grains of asafoetida.

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. Tamarind + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together149 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + tamarindtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together207 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Tamarind + gheetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106 recipes

    Shared aroma: maltol (caramel, sweet).

  5. Pepper + gheetop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together690 recipes

    Shared aroma: maltol (caramel, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Pepper powder
Supplies the main pungent heat and flavour of the broth.
Red pulse
Breaks down during boiling, adding body and thickness to the liquid.
Tamarind juice
Adds sourness that balances the heat and richness.
Fried mustard
Releases pungent aroma when fried, adding sharpness.
Cumin seeds
Release warm aroma when fried in fat.
Ghee
Carries fat-soluble flavour and aroma from the fried spices into the dish.

The step that matters

Frying the pepper and pulse in ghee. Fry gently until fragrant but not dark. Scorched pepper and pulse turn bitter and can spoil the whole pot, while under-fried spices keep a raw, harsh taste.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, tamarind, ghee. 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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