Biryani Lab319 recipes
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Biryani around the world

316 biryani recipes in 4 languages: English 240, French 46, German 17 and Dutch 13. Each is reduced to grams per 100 g of uncooked rice, the same as everywhere in the lab, so a French page and an American one line up. English, the largest group, is the one the others are compared with.

The language is the page's, not the cook's country: a French page may be from Quebec, a Portuguese one from Brazil, a Dutch one from Belgium. Each language's lines are read in its own words and units, and a recipe that gives “a pinch” of salt counts a pinch.

Also in the lab, too few to compare (under 8 recipes): Portuguese 2 and Italian 1.

Where they part from English

The clearest differences for each language, medians per 100 g of uncooked rice. Only differences large enough to matter and unlikely to be chance are listed (how below).

  • Dutch 13 recipesMost Dutch recipes use no onions (61%, against 3% of English recipes) and no mint and coriander (76%, against 29%); 38% use no ghee or oil, against 8%.
  • German 17 recipesGerman recipes use under a third as much spices as English ones (1.6% against 4.9% of the uncooked rice weight); most use no mint and coriander (70%, against 29% of English recipes).
  • French 46 recipesFrench recipes use about half as much ghee or oil as English ones (6.1% against 15% of the uncooked rice weight) and 40% fewer spices (2.9% against 4.9%); most use no mint and coriander (56%, against 29% of English recipes).

Every ingredient, language by language

Grams per 100 g of uncooked rice. One row a language, largest first.

middle half, and the median (the number at right; when most use none, the share that uses any)middle half of every recipesmall number after a name: recipes

Meat, fish or egg
Yogurt
Onions
Ghee or oil
Mint and coriander
Spices
Potatoes
Salt

The typical pot in each language

The median of each language's recipes for every ingredient, scaled to 400 g of uncooked rice. No single recipe is exactly this. Under each, the recipe nearest its language's medians.

The medians and middle halves as a table
Median and middle half per 100 g of uncooked rice, by language
LanguageMeat, fish or eggYogurtOnionsGhee or oilMint and corianderSpicesPotatoesSalt
English 240131%0% to 192%30%8.3% to 49%58%36% to 89%15%9.2% to 22%1.4%0% to 2.9%4.9%3.2% to 7%0%0% to 0%1%0% to 3.2%
French 46163%94% to 200%37%0% to 63%68%50% to 93%6.1%0% to 15%0%0% to 0.3%2.9%1.8% to 5.2%0%0% to 0%0%0% to 0%
German 1743%0% to 125%24%0% to 50%63%30% to 93%15%11% to 22%0%0% to 0.1%1.6%1% to 3.3%0%0% to 0%0%0% to 0.1%
Dutch 13100%0% to 167%0%0% to 31%0%0% to 55%9.1%0% to 11%0%0% to 0%6.4%2.2% to 6.6%0%0% to 0%0%0% to 0%

How the comparison works

A language gets a row with at least 8 recipes. Each is compared with the English recipes on every ingredient, and a difference is listed only when it clears two bars: the medians sit at least a third of the middle half of all recipes apart (about half a standard deviation, a medium effect), and a rank test puts the gap at 3 standard errors or more, so a language with few recipes needs a large difference. For an ingredient many recipes skip, the share using none counts too: at least 25 points apart, at the same 3 standard errors.

Every ingredient is tested for every language, a few dozen tests per lab, which is why the bar is higher than the usual two standard errors. Salt is listed last when it differs: many recipes give it as a pinch or leave it to taste. Shares and “more than” percentages are rounded down, so none is an overstatement.

These are what recipe writers in each language do, not rules of each country's cooking. A language with 8 to 20 recipes may come mostly from a few sites; each recipe page names its source.