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Curried Haddock

A smoked haddock cooked with onion, garlic, bay leaves, cloves, curry powder, tomato pulp, mace, water, and lobster, served over boiled rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Curried Haddock

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the fish

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Place the smoked haddock in the oven for a few minutes until heated through, then remove the bones and skin.

Make the curry

  1. In a pan, melt 3 ounces of butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the chopped onion, garlic, bay leaves, and whole cloves; fry until golden brown.

  3. Stir in 1 tablespoon of curry powder and mix well.

  4. Add the haddock to the pan and stir until the fish is almost dry.

  5. In a separate bowl, combine 2 tablespoons of tomato pulp, 1 piece of mace, and 1 cup of water; add to the pan.

  6. Let the mixture simmer gently for 1 hour.

Finish and serve

  1. Before serving, add salt to taste and a squeeze of lemon juice.

  2. Stir in the contents of the can of lobster and serve with plain boiled rice.

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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Garlic + tomatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Garlic + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,893 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Smoked haddock
Forms the main body of the dish and gives it its smoky, savoury flavour.
Butter
Carries the spices and onion, adding richness and helping them fry evenly.
Curry powder
Provides the warm, aromatic spice flavour that defines the dish.
Tomato pulp
Adds moisture and gentle acidity that balances the rich fat and spices.
Onion
Softens and browns in the butter, building sweetness and a flavour base.
Lobster
Adds extra seafood flavour and tenderness when stirred in at the end.

The step that matters

Simmering the curry. Simmering gently for the full hour lets the spices bloom and the sauce thicken and mellow; boiling hard can toughen the fish and scorch the spices.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (haddock, onion, clove, garlic, butter, tomato, lemon):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against haddock, onion, clove, garlic, butter, tomato, lemon. 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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