Name: Another Way to Make Currie Powder
Ingredients: 1½ pounds coriander seed; 3 ounces mustard seed; 6 ounces cumin seed; 11 ounces turmeric; 3 ounces cayenne pepper; 6 ounces black pepper; 4 ounces fennel seed; 4 ounces coarse sea salt; 4 ounces garlic

Why it works: Cumin and turmeric match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,698 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Another Way to Make Currie Powder

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the coriander seed, mustard seed, and cumin seed over the fire.
Mix the browned seeds with turmeric, cayenne, black pepper, fennel seed, coarse sea salt, and garlic.
Pound the mixture before grinding it in a fine pepper mill.
Use about 1 ounce for a moderate-sized dish.

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.

Cumin + turmerictop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,698 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Coriander + cumintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,866 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Cumin + fenneltop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together276 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).
Turmeric + fenneltop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together193 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Cumin + garlictop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,082 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

Coriander seed: Provides the bulk of the warm, citrusy flavour base of the blend.
Cumin seed: Adds earthy, warm aroma when browned.
Turmeric: Gives the powder its yellow colour and a mild, earthy bitterness.
Cayenne pepper: Adds heat that builds the spiciness of the blend.
Black pepper: Contributes sharp, pungent heat that complements the other spices.
Garlic: Adds pungent savoury aroma to the mixture.

The step that matters

Browning the seeds over the fire. Toasting whole seeds releases their volatile aromatic oils, which deepens flavour. Burning them turns the flavour bitter and acrid, so they need steady, watchful heat.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (coriander, cumin, turmeric, pepper, fennel, garlic):

Spinachfits better
Capsicumfits better
Eggplantfits better
Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against coriander, cumin, turmeric, pepper, fennel, garlic. 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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Another Way to Make Currie Powder