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Kulleah Chowlahee

A sautéed greens dish with eggs, ghee, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Coriander and cardamom match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 872 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Kulleah Chowlahee

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the greens

  1. Pick out dirt and grass from the chowlahee greens.

  2. Cut the cleaned greens into small pieces.

  3. Boil the greens in a saucepan with water for 15 minutes.

  4. Drain the boiled greens.

Make the sauce

  1. Slice the onion.

  2. Fry the sliced onion in ghee.

  3. Add the fried onion to the greens with salt.

  4. Fry the sliced garlic in ghee until brown.

  5. Add the browned garlic to the greens.

  6. Grind the green coriander.

  7. Mix the ground coriander into the greens.

  8. Add the curry spices to the greens.

  9. Shake the saucepan well.

Finish and serve

  1. Hard boil the eggs.

  2. Cut the boiled eggs in half.

  3. Place the egg halves on top of the greens.

  4. Let the dish simmer for a short time 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.

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 + cardamomtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together872 recipes

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

  2. Clove + cardamomtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,114 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Ginger + cardamomtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,114 recipes

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

  4. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Provide protein that sets firm when hard boiled, giving the dish richness and a finished look.
Ghee
Adds fat and a rich, nutty flavour when used to fry the onion and garlic.
Onion
Fried until golden, it adds sweetness and savory depth to the greens.
Chowlahee greens
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender through boiling and absorbing the seasonings.
Garlic
Browned in ghee, it adds pungent aroma and savory depth.

The step that matters

Boiling the greens for 15 minutes before adding seasonings. Boiling softens the fibrous greens and removes raw bitterness, so they become tender and absorb the spices evenly. Draining well first keeps excess water from diluting the sauce.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, ghee, coriander, ginger, clove, garlic, cardamom):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Broccolifits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, ghee, coriander, ginger, clove, garlic, cardamom. 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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