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Curry of Fish

A fish curry made with butter, onion, apple, curry powder, rice flour, fish stock, lemon juice, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Curry of Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a pan and fry the onion and apple until soft.

  2. Stir in the curry powder and rice flour, cooking without browning.

  3. Add the fish stock and seasonings, then simmer for 30 minutes.

  4. Strain the mixture and return it to the pan.

Finish and serve

  1. Cut the fish into neat pieces and add to the pan, simmering until cooked.

  2. Stir in the cream and lemon juice, then serve with boiled rice on the side.

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. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

  3. Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Fish
Forms the main protein, cooked gently in the sauce until it turns opaque and flaky.
Butter
Carries the curry flavours and softens the onion and apple as they fry.
Rice flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce as it cooks with the fat.
Curry powder
Provides the main spiced aroma and flavour of the dish.
Apple
Adds gentle sweetness and body that softens into the sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and a smoother, rounder texture to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Cooking the rice flour without browning. Flour cooked briefly in fat loses its raw taste and thickens well, while over-browning gives a dark, bitter flavour and weaker thickening. Keep the heat moderate and stir constantly.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, butter, onion, rice, flour, lemon, cream. 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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