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Malai Curry

A coconut-based fish curry with spices, ghee, and flour thickener.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Cumin and turmeric match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,698 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Malai Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Prepare the fish by cutting it into large pieces; keep lobsters whole.

  2. Fry the fish in oil until cooked.

Make the coconut milk and pastes

  1. Extract the coconut milk from the coconuts as done in fish soup.

  2. Make a paste of the cumin, pepper, coriander, turmeric, and ginger.

  3. In a separate bowl, make a paste of the garam masala.

Cook the curry

  1. Heat oil and fry the cassia leaves and spice paste for about 5 minutes, adding water if necessary.

  2. Add the coconut milk and bring to a boil.

  3. Stir in the salt, fish, and a thin solution of flour.

  4. Once properly boiled, season the curry with hot ghee, chillies, and fried cumin.

  5. Add the garam masala and remove from heat when the sauce is thick.

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. Cumin + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,698 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Cumin + coriandertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,866 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Turmeric + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Coriander + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Coriander + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,253 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Forms the main body of the curry and absorbs the sauce's flavour.
Coconut milk
Provides richness and a creamy, mellow body to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it simmers, giving it body.
Turmeric
Adds earthy colour and a warm, slightly bitter flavour to the spice base.
Ghee
Adds rich fat and a nutty aroma when poured over the finished curry.
Dried chillies
Adds heat and pungency to the finished curry.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce with flour. Flour mixed into boiling liquid can clump if added as dry powder, so it must be a thin solution. Stirring as it goes keeps the sauce smooth, and removing it from heat once thick stops it from over-thickening and becoming pasty.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, coconut, cumin, pepper, coriander, turmeric, ginger):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, coconut, cumin, pepper, coriander, turmeric, ginger. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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