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Bengal Curry

A spicy curry made with onions, coriander, red pepper, turmeric, butter, curds, coconut, and meat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Coriander and turmeric match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,253 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Bengal Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spice paste

  1. Rub the coriander seeds smooth in a mortar.

  2. Add the red pepper and onions.

  3. Pound them together, mixing well.

  4. Mix the curds with the pounded ingredients.

Fry the spices

  1. Melt the butter in a stewpan.

  2. Slice an onion into the melted butter.

  3. Remove the onion when browned.

  4. Add the turmeric.

  5. Fry until the raw flavor disappears.

Cook the curry

  1. Add the mixture to the pan with the meat, grated coconut, and salt.

  2. Stir the stew continually.

  3. Add water as needed to prevent burning while the meat browns.

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. Coriander + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,253 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Turmeric + coconuttop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,027 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  3. Coriander + coconuttop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,039 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Pepper + turmerictop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Pepper + coriandertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,949 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

Curds
Adds tangy acidity and a creamy body that thickens the sauce as it cooks.
Butter
Carries the spices and adds fat, richness and flavor while the onion browns.
Onions
Break down into sweetness and body, and brown to add depth to the sauce.
Coriander seeds
Provide the warm, citrusy aromatic base of the spice blend.
Turmeric
Adds earthy aroma and a yellow color to the curry.
Grated coconut
Adds sweetness, fat and a rounded texture to the stew.

The step that matters

Fry until the raw flavor disappears. Frying ground spices in hot fat cooks off their raw, harsh taste and releases aroma-carrying oils. Undercooked spices leave the curry tasting raw and dusty.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, coriander, butter, turmeric, meat, coconut):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, coriander, butter, turmeric, meat, coconut. 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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