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Fish Curry in Milk

Fish curry simmered in milk with onions, shallots, curry powder, and lemon pickle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,523 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Fish Curry in Milk

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Lightly fry the sliced onions and shallots in butter in a skillet.

  2. Dredge the fish pieces in flour and fry them until brown.

  3. Remove the fish from the skillet and sprinkle with curry powder.

Stew and serve

  1. In a stew pan, combine the fish with 1 tablespoon of flour, 4 tablespoons of cream, salt, and mixed spice.

  2. Let it stew for 30 minutes.

  3. Add ½ pint of boiling milk and 2 tablespoons of lemon pickle, then serve.

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. Shallot + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,523 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Onion + shallottop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Softened in butter to build a sweet, savoury base for the curry.
Fish
Main protein, browned in flour so its surface gains colour and flavour before stewing.
Flour
Coats the fish for browning and, added to the stew, helps thicken the sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and body to the sauce.
Milk
Added at the end to loosen the stew into a creamy, mild sauce.
Lemon pickle
Adds sharpness and acidity that balances the richness of the cream and milk.

The step that matters

Dredging and browning the fish. Flour-coated fish must be browned until golden before stewing; pale fish stays soft and bland and the flour can turn gummy in the sauce.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shallot, butter, fish, flour, cream, milk, lemon):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shallot, butter, fish, flour, cream, milk, 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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