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Dumpokht

Dumpokht is a roasted fowl or rabbit stuffed with raisins, pistachios, and rice, flavored with coriander, onions, peppercorns, cloves, ginger, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Pistachio and nuts work together. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 425 recipes mention both. Both carry alpha-terpineol, which smells lilac, floral. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fowl

  1. Clean the fowl or rabbit.

  2. Truss the fowl or rabbit for roasting.

  3. Stuff the fowl or rabbit with equal parts sultana raisins, pistachio nuts, and boiled rice.

  4. Rub the coriander seeds, onions, peppercorns, cloves, and ginger into a fine paste.

  5. Rub the pounded mixture over the fowl or rabbit.

Make the rice

  1. Melt the butter in a stewpan over medium heat.

  2. In a separate pot, boil the rice, sultana raisins, pistachio nuts, and sliced almonds in the white broth.

  3. When the rice is nearly done, strain off the broth.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry the fowl or rabbit until browned and tender.

  2. Add the rice to the fried fowl.

  3. Stir well to coat the rice with butter.

  4. Keep warm until serving.

  5. Serve the fowl surrounded by the rice.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Pistachio + nutstop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together425 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  2. Rice + coriandertop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  3. Rabbit + ricetop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together252 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Raisin + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together4,022 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  5. Rice + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together9,990 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Enriches the rice and fries the fowl, adding richness and golden browning.
Boiled rice
Forms the bulk of the stuffing and absorbs flavour and fat.
Pistachio nuts
Add crunch and a nutty flavour to the stuffing and rice.
Sultana raisins
Add sweetness and moisture to the stuffing and rice.
Onions
Break down into the spice paste, adding moisture, savoury depth and browning.
Coriander seeds
Contribute a citrusy aroma to the spice paste rubbed over the fowl.

The step that matters

Fry the fowl until browned and tender. Butter and the onion-spice paste brown on the skin through the Maillard reaction, but high heat can scorch the butter and paste before the bird cooks through. Medium heat and steady basting give even colour and a tender interior.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, raisin, pistachio, nuts, rice, coriander, clove):

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Carrotbetter flavor fit
  3. Potatobetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, raisin, pistachio, nuts, rice, coriander, clove. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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