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Coconut Fish Curry Parcels

Fish fillets wrapped in banana or cabbage leaves and steamed in a coconut curry sauce.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon grass and fish sauce work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 304 recipes mention both. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

The recipe

Time1 hour

Ingredients

Contains: soy, fish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Make the coconut sauce

  1. Place the garlic, onion, galangal, lemon grass, turmeric, paprika, fish sauce and sugar in a blender or food processor and process until well blended.

  2. Add the coconut milk and process again until thoroughly mixed.

  3. Transfer the coconut mixture to a medium saucepan and bring to simmering point, stirring. Continue to cook gently for about 10 minutes until thickened.

Prepare the parcels

  1. Meanwhile, if using cabbage greens, place them in a large saucepan, cover with boiling water and set aside to soften. If using banana leaves, cut into pieces about 20 cm (8‑inch) square.

  2. Place the fish in a bowl, season with a little salt then pour over half the hot coconut sauce and mix well. Set the remaining sauce aside.

  3. Place 1/8th of the fish mixture in the centre of each leaf and fold the edges over to form secure parcels, making sure you tuck the edges under.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam the parcels for 1 hour.

  2. 5 minutes before the end of the cooking time, gently reheat the remaining sauce.

  3. To serve – make a small opening down the centre of each parcel and spoon the remaining coconut sauce into the opening. Serve immediately with rice.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Lemon grass + fish saucetop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together304 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  2. Lemon grass + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together144 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together29,030 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Lemon grass + coconuttop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together276 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-pinene (pine, resin).

  5. Turmeric + coconuttop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,028 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

White fish fillets
Provides the protein that becomes flaky and moist as it steams inside the leaf parcel.
Coconut milk
Forms the rich, creamy sauce that carries flavour and keeps the fish moist.
Lemon grass
Adds a citrus aroma that scents the coconut sauce.
Fish sauce
Adds salty savoury depth that seasons the sauce.
Red onion
Adds body and a mild sweetness to the sauce base once blended and cooked.

The step that matters

Thickening the coconut sauce. Cooking the blended coconut mixture gently while stirring keeps the coconut milk from scorching or separating, and lets it thicken into a sauce that clings to the fish.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (garlic, lemon grass, turmeric, fish sauce, sugar, coconut, milk):

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Tomatobetter flavor fit
  3. Sweet potatobetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against garlic, lemon grass, turmeric, fish sauce, sugar, coconut, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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