Skip to main content
Drink

Curry Powder

A spice blend of mace, allspice, cumin seeds, turmeric, coriander seeds, and black pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cumin and turmeric match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,698 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Curry Powder

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Grind all ingredients to a fine powder.

  2. Mix thoroughly and pass through a sieve.

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. Cumin + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,698 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Cumin + coriandertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,866 recipes

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

  3. Turmeric + coriandertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,253 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Allspice + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Allspice + coriandertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together393 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Turmeric
Gives the blend its yellow colour and a warm, earthy flavour.
Cumin seeds
Adds a warm, earthy aroma that is central to the blend's character.
Coriander seeds
Contributes a mild, citrusy aroma that rounds out the blend.
Black pepper
Adds sharp heat and pungency to the blend.
Allspice
Adds warm, sweet-spiced aroma to the blend.
Mace
Adds a delicate, nutmeg-like warm aroma to the blend.

The step that matters

Grind to a fine powder. Whole spices release their aromas only once their cell walls are broken. A fine, evenly sized powder blends uniformly and gives a consistent flavour throughout.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (allspice, cumin, turmeric, coriander, pepper):

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Oreganofits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against allspice, cumin, turmeric, coriander, pepper. 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.

More curry powder recipes

Bengal 13Delhi 3Indian 3Madras 3 See all 102 →

You might also like

Vegetable SoupVegetable Soup350 recipesRaspberry VinegarRaspberry Vinegar214 recipesBrown Coffee with EggBrown Coffee with Egg175 recipesBlackberry CordialBlackberry Cordial129 recipes