Name: Kerala Prawn Curry
Cook time: 15 min
Yield: Serves 2
Ingredients: 2 red chillies split, cut into quarters lengthways and seeded; 1 small red onion , chopped; 2.5cm piece of fresh root ginger , peeled and chopped; 1 tbsp vegetable or sunflower oil; 1 tsp black mustard seeds; ½ tsp fenugreek seeds; 14 curry leaves , fresh or dried; ½ tsp turmeric; ½ tsp cracked black peppercorns; 250g jumbo prawns , leave some with their tails on if you like; 150ml reduced-fat coconut milk; a squeeze of lime; chopped fresh coriander , plus a sprig or two; freshly boiled basmati rice

Why it works: Fenugreek and turmeric match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 229 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

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.

Fenugreek + turmerictop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together229 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Ginger + turmerictop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,776 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Sunflower + coconuttop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together194 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-pinene (pine, resin).
Mustard + fenugreektop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together137 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
Turmeric + coconuttop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,027 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

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

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ginger, sunflower, mustard, fenugreek, turmeric, coconut, milk):

Welsh onionfits better
Arrowrootfits better
Spinachfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ginger, sunflower, mustard, fenugreek, turmeric, coconut, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Coconut	1/2 cup shredded (40g)	283
Rice	1 cup cooked (158g) white	206
Vegetable	1 tbsp (14g)	120
Shrimp	100g cooked	99
Onion	1 medium (110g)	44
Lime	juice of 1 lime (44ml)	11
Turmeric	1 tsp ground (3g)	9
Black Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
Mustard	1 tsp (5g) yellow	3
Ginger	1 tsp grated fresh (2g)	2
Sunflower Oil	not in our table	0
Seed	not in our table	0
Fenugreek	not in our table	0
Coriander	not in our table	0

Kerala Prawn Curry