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Curry

A curry powder mixture served with boiled rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Curry

Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spice blends

  1. Combine cardamoms, coriander seeds, black pepper, cayenne pepper, cummin seed, turmeric, cloves, cinnamon, and fenugreek to make curry-stuff.

  2. For another curry-powder, mix cayenne, mustard, fenugreek, allspice, turmeric, salt, cinnamon, and green ginger.

Cook the rice

  1. Wash rice in several waters and soak in cold water for 3 hours.

  2. Boil the soaked rice until done, then strain through a colander.

  3. Fluff the rice with a fork to separate the grains before serving.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cardamom + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together667 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Cardamom + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,299 recipes

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

  5. Cardamom + coriandertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together872 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Forms the bulk of the dish; soaking and boiling set its final texture.
Turmeric
Adds earthy color and a bitter, warm flavor to the spice blends.
Cayenne pepper
Adds heat to both spice blends.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Carrotfits about as well
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cardamom, coriander, pepper, turmeric, clove, cinnamon, fenugreek. 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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