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Halibut, Curried Slices of

A halibut dish where sliced fish is fried, then simmered in a curry sauce with beef stock, cream, and served over boiled rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Halibut, Curried Slices of

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Cut the halibut into slices ¾ inch thick, leaving the skin on.

  2. Flour the slices well and fry them in hot butter or lard until browned.

Make the sauce

  1. In a separate pot, heat the beef stock.

  2. Mix the curry powder and ground rice with a little stock until smooth, then add to the beef stock.

  3. Let the mixture boil, then stir in the cream or milk.

Finish and serve

  1. Stew the fish slices in the sauce until tender.

  2. Serve the fish on a hot dish, pouring the sauce over it.

  3. Garnish with boiled rice around the dish.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Beef + ricetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,265 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Flour + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Halibut
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming flaky and tender when stewed in the sauce.
Flour
Coats the slices so they brown in the hot fat and help thicken the sauce slightly.
Beef stock
Provides the savoury liquid base in which the sauce is built and the fish is stewed.
Curry powder
Supplies the spiced, aromatic flavour that defines the sauce.
Ground rice
Thickens the sauce so it coats the fish rather than running off.
Cream or milk
Adds richness and a mellow, smooth texture to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Mixing the curry powder and ground rice into a smooth paste. Curry powder and ground rice clump easily when added dry to hot liquid. Blending them first with a little cold stock keeps the sauce smooth and evenly thickened, and the curry spices bloom better when dispersed evenly before boiling.

“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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