Biryani Lab319 recipes

Biryani Lab

Two overlapping styles in 319 biryani recipes

Leave the recipe names aside and group the 319 recipes by their 8 ingredient ratios alone, so that recipes built alike land together. Each group is named only by the numbers: the ingredients where its recipes sit furthest from the middle of all 319.

The data splits best into two groups, but they overlap: a silhouette of 0.21, on a scale where 0 is no separation and 1 is complete. Read them as tendencies within one broad spread rather than separate kinds of biryani.

The recipes on one map

Every recipe, placed on the two directions along which the ratios vary most (a principal component projection). Close dots are recipes built alike. The lettered rings mark the middle of each group.

AB
Across →
More ghee or oil, spices and onions to the right; 23% of the variation.
Up ↑
More meat, fish or egg and yogurt, less mint and coriander upward; 17% of the variation.

Along the first direction ghee or oil, spices and onions all rise together, each measured against the rice. A recipe sits far along it by using more of them or by using less uncooked rice, which the ratios cannot tell apart. The groups sit apart mostly along this direction.

The two groups

ALess ghee or oil

207 recipes · 65% of all 319

Where it differs from all recipes

  • Ghee or oilmedian 11% vs 14% for all

    average rank: 38th percentile of all recipes

  • Spicesmedian 3.7% vs 4.6% for all

    average rank: 38th percentile of all recipes

  • Onionsmedian 46% vs 59% for all

    average rank: 41st percentile of all recipes

Its median recipe, at 400 g uncooked rice

Median recipe of group A in grams, against the median of all recipes
IngredientGroup AAll
Meat, fish or egg535 g535 g
Yogurt90 g115 g
Onions185 g235 g
Ghee or oil44 g55 g
Mint and coriander0.5 g3 g
Spices15 g18 g
Potatoesnonenone
Saltnonenone

Each line is the group's median for that ingredient, scaled to 400 g of uncooked rice.

Closest to the middle of the group

BMore ghee or oil, more spices

112 recipes · 35% of all 319

Where it differs from all recipes

  • Ghee or oilmedian 22% vs 14% for all

    average rank: 73rd percentile of all recipes

  • Spicesmedian 7.6% vs 4.6% for all

    average rank: 72nd percentile of all recipes

  • Onionsmedian 88% vs 59% for all

    average rank: 66th percentile of all recipes

Its median recipe, at 400 g uncooked rice

Median recipe of group B in grams, against the median of all recipes
IngredientGroup BAll
Meat, fish or egg535 g535 g
Yogurt135 g115 g
Onions350 g235 g
Ghee or oil90 g55 g
Mint and coriander11 g3 g
Spices30 g18 g
Potatoesnonenone
Salt2.5 gnone

Each line is the group's median for that ingredient, scaled to 400 g of uncooked rice.

Closest to the middle of the group

How the groups are found

Each ratio is converted to a z-score (how many standard deviations a recipe sits from the mean), capped at 3 so one extreme recipe cannot claim a group, and k-means sorts the recipes into k groups, trying k from 2 to 4. Each k runs from 16 fixed starting points and keeps the tightest result, so the page is the same on every build. No group may hold fewer than 32 recipes.

The number of groups is the one with the best silhouette, which compares how close each recipe is to its own group with how close it is to the next one. By number of groups: 2 groups 0.21 · 3 groups 0.14 · 4 groups 0.15. At 0.25 or more the page calls the groups separate; from 0.18 to 0.25, overlapping; under 0.18, no clear styles.

A group's name lists the one to three ingredients where its recipes rank furthest from the middle of all 319, on average. “More” and “less” are relative to the whole dataset, and the names say nothing about texture or taste, which the ratios alone do not show. The median recipe of a group is, like the typical recipe on the overview, the middle of each ingredient separately, not one real recipe. The recipes listed under each group are the ones nearest its center, at most two from any one site.