Fenugrec

The maple-bitter backbone; without it the blend is just coriander dust.

Flat pulse, bitter seed, hot fat. The tarka is where the fenugreek goes.

Seed and leaf in one pot: one toasted and bitter, one green and hay-like.

Starch absorbs the bitterness and hands back something that reads savoury.

Acid stops the burnt-sugar note tipping over into medicine.

Two seeds popped in the same fat, one bitter and one pungent.

Saturated fat mutes the bitterness and keeps only the maple half.

Butter chicken runs on it. Take it out and the sauce reads as sweet tomato.

Dairy fat rounds the bitter edge off and leaves the maple standing.

Sotolon in both. The seed is where imitation maple flavouring came from.

Its own sweaty maple note meets the meat halfway; no masking involved.

Maple-bitter seed doubles the molasses note already in the grain.

Shared sotolon under roast bitterness; a known adulterant, and not a bad one.

Sotolon again: the nutty oxidised note in the glass is the same molecule.

Cocoa butter holds the maple note and drops the bitterness entirely.