Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Curry Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Pound the garlic, Nepaul pepper, raisins, and sultanas together.
Make the sauce
Boil the tomatoes in vinegar and lemon juice, adding salt and sugar until the tomatoes become a pulp.
Let the mixture cool, then stir in the pounded ingredients.
Simmer gently for five minutes, then strain and bottle.
Rest
Do not use for four months.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together27,047 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Tomato + garlictop 3% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together14,076 recipes
Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
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Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,923 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Garlic + peppertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,090 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Lemon + garlictop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,893 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
- Tomatoes
- Break down into a pulp to form the body of the sauce.
- Vinegar
- Provides acidity that sharpens flavour and helps preserve the sauce.
- Brown sugar
- Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the vinegar and lemon juice.
- Raisins
- Add sweetness and body when pounded into the sauce.
- Sultanas
- Add sweetness and body when pounded into the sauce.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the sauce.
The step that matters
Simmer gently for five minutes. Simmering too hard can scorch sugars and fruit solids on the pan base and make the sauce taste bitter or burnt. A gentle simmer keeps the flavours clean and lets the sauce thicken evenly before straining.
Swap the raisin
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, sugar, vinegar, lemon, garlic, pepper):
- Limefits better
- Cherryfits better
- Mangofits better
- Raisinthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, sugar, vinegar, lemon, garlic, 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.
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