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Babbawn Pullow

A pilaf-style dish of wheat cooked with spiced meat gravy and ghee.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cumin and coriander match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 3,866 recipes mention both. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare the wheat

  1. Soak the wheat in water until tender, then dry it.

  2. Coarsely grind the dried wheat to remove the husk.

Make the gravy

  1. In a saucepan, combine the meat, water, cumin seeds, onion, ginger, salt, and coriander seeds. Boil well.

  2. Strain the gravy into another vessel.

  3. Season the meat with cloves.

Cook and serve

  1. In a pan, fry the wheat with some ghee.

  2. Add the gravy and a little more ghee to the wheat. Boil until done.

  3. In another saucepan, have the meat with spices ready.

  4. Top the meat with the wheat and a little more ghee. Cover and set near the fire for 20 minutes.

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. Cumin + coriandertop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,866 recipes

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

  2. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + coriandertop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,504 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Cumin + gingertop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,733 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Cumin + clovetop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together642 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Wheat
Forms the bulk of the pulao and absorbs the gravy as it cooks, becoming tender.
Meat
Provides the main protein and savoury flavour that the gravy carries through the dish.
Onion
Adds sweetness and body to the gravy as it cooks down with the meat.
Ghee
Adds richness and fat, helping the wheat fry and carry flavour.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (wheat, meat, cumin, ginger, coriander, ghee, clove):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against wheat, meat, cumin, ginger, coriander, ghee, 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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