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Another Wat to Make Currie Powder

A homemade curry powder made by dry pounding turmeric, ginger, black pepper, cumin seed, fennel seed, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Turmeric and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,776 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Another Wat to Make Currie Powder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Dry and finely pound all the ingredients.

  2. Mix them thoroughly.

Dry and store

  1. Dry the mixture before the fire for several hours.

  2. Store in a well-corked bottle.

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 + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Turmeric + fenneltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together193 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Ginger + fenneltop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together253 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Pepper + fenneltop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,216 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 blend its yellow colour and earthy, slightly bitter base flavour.
Ginger
Adds a warm, pungent aroma that rounds out the spice mix.
Black pepper
Provides sharp, biting heat that lifts the other spices.
Cumin seed
Contributes a warm, earthy aroma typical of curry flavour.
Fennel seed
Adds a light, sweet, anise-like aroma that softens the heat.
Cayenne pepper
Brings direct chilli heat, adjustable by the amount used.

The step that matters

Drying the mixture before the fire. Any moisture left in the ground spices can encourage mould and clumping during storage, so the mix must be fully dry. Gentle, even drying also keeps volatile aromatics from being lost to excess heat.

Swap the fennel

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

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Cuminfits better
  3. Corianderfits better
  4. Fennelthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turmeric, ginger, 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.

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