Massaman Curry Lab95 recipes

Massaman Curry Lab

Two styles in 95 massaman curry recipes

Leave the recipe names aside and group the 95 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 95.

The data splits best into two groups, and they separate: a silhouette of 0.25, on a scale where 0 is no separation and 1 is complete. They still touch at the edges, so a recipe near a boundary could sit in either.

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 sugar, meat, fish or tofu and curry paste to the right; 30% of the variation.
Up ↑
More potatoes and onions, less tamarind or lime upward; 19% of the variation.

Along the first direction sugar, meat, fish or tofu, curry paste, fish or soy sauce and tamarind or lime all rise together, each measured against the coconut milk. A recipe sits far along it by using more of them or by using fewer cans, which the ratios cannot tell apart. The groups sit apart mostly along this direction.

The two groups

AClose to the overall median

68 recipes · 72% of all 95

Where it differs from all recipes

  • Curry pastemedian 37 g vs 48 g for all

    average rank: 41st percentile of all recipes

  • Sugarmedian 4.6 g vs 7.7 g for all

    average rank: 39th percentile of all recipes · none in 44% (all recipes 31%)

  • Fish or soy saucemedian 7.5 g vs 18 g for all

    average rank: 41st percentile of all recipes · none in 45% (all recipes 34%)

Its median recipe, at 1 can

Median recipe of group A in grams, against the median of all recipes
IngredientGroup AAll
Curry paste37 g48 g
Meat, fish or tofu300 g355 g
Potatoes250 g315 g
Onions38 g50 g
Peanuts11 g24 g
Fish or soy sauce7 g18 g
Tamarind or lime6 g14 g
Sugar4.5 g8 g

Each line is the group's median for that ingredient, scaled to 400 g, 1 can.

Closest to the middle of the group

BMore curry paste, with sugar

27 recipes · 28% of all 95

Where it differs from all recipes

  • Curry pastemedian 101 g vs 48 g for all

    average rank: 72nd percentile of all recipes

  • Sugarmedian 23 g vs 7.7 g for all

    average rank: 77th percentile of all recipes · none in 0% (all recipes 31%)

  • Fish or soy saucemedian 34 g vs 18 g for all

    average rank: 73rd percentile of all recipes · none in 7% (all recipes 34%)

Its median recipe, at 1 can

Median recipe of group B in grams, against the median of all recipes
IngredientGroup BAll
Curry paste100 g48 g
Meat, fish or tofu685 g355 g
Potatoes455 g315 g
Onions70 g50 g
Peanuts35 g24 g
Fish or soy sauce34 g18 g
Tamarind or lime23 g14 g
Sugar23 g8 g

Each line is the group's median for that ingredient, scaled to 400 g, 1 can.

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 10 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 0.25 · 3 groups 0.25 · 4 groups 0.24. 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 95, 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.