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Curry Crumble with Sweetcorn Relish, Mint and Cucumber Raita and a Spicy Salad

If you like curry and you’re keen on crumble, why not combine them? And throw in a few fancy side dishes for good measure.

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Why it works: Sweetcorn and peas share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and 49 recipes mention both. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 1
Prep1 hr
Cook1 hr

Ingredients

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

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Heat the oven to 400°F (200°C). Rub the margarine into the plain flour with a pinch of salt and the ground nut until it looks like breadcrumbs. Set aside.

  2. Heat the groundnut oil in a pan over medium heat. Fry the chopped onion for 8 minutes until soft. Add the chopped garlic, half the green chilli and the mustard seeds, and cook for 1 minute.

  3. Add the chicken breast cut into small pieces and cook for 5 minutes until browned. Stir in the ground cumin, ground coriander, turmeric, garam masala, korma curry paste and tomato purée, and cook for 1 minute.

  4. Add 1 tbsp of the chopped tomatoes, the coconut milk and the frozen peas. Simmer gently for 10 minutes until the chicken is cooked through to 165°F (74°C) in the thickest part. Stir in the fresh coriander and season with salt and pepper, then spoon into a small ovenproof dish.

  5. Scatter the crumble mixture over the curry. Bake for 20 minutes until golden on top.

  6. For the sweetcorn relish, warm the tinned sweetcorn with the remaining chopped tomatoes, the sugar, a pinch of salt and pepper, and a splash of water for 5 minutes. Keep warm.

  7. For the raita, dice the cucumber and mix it with the natural yoghurt, chopped mint, the remaining ground cumin, salt and pepper. Chill until serving.

  8. For the spicy salad, whisk the olive oil, balsamic vinegar, clear honey, black pepper and a pinch of salt. Thinly slice the remaining green chilli and toss with the salad leaves and dressing. Serve everything together.

By bbcfood. Recipe from Open Recipes.

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. Sweetcorn + peastop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together49 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Cumin + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,698 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  4. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together29,030 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Coriander + tomatotop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,966 recipes

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

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

Flavor stand-ins for the coconut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, chicken, garlic, cumin, coriander, turmeric, tomato):

  1. Limebetter flavor fit
  2. Avocadobetter flavor fit
  3. Lemonabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Coconutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, chicken, garlic, cumin, coriander, turmeric, tomato. 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).