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Cold Boiled Cod Curried

A dish of cod pieces fried in butter, mixed with onions and a curry-flavored white gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Cold Boiled Cod Curried

Ingredients

Directions

Fry the fish and onions

  1. Fry the cod pieces in butter until golden brown.

  2. Add plenty of sliced onions and cook until they are browned.

Make the curry sauce

  1. Prepare a white gravy by thickening broth with 2 tablespoons of flour and a little butter.

  2. Stir in ⅓ cup of rich cream and 1 tablespoon of curry powder.

Combine and simmer

  1. Combine the fried cod and onions with the curry sauce and simmer briefly.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 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

Cod
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked to golden brown on the outside.
Butter
Adds fat for frying, helping the cod and onions brown.
Onions
Browning in the pan adds sweetness and savory depth to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the broth into a white gravy with a smooth body.
Rich cream
Adds fat and richness, softening the sauce and mellowing the curry flavor.
Curry powder
Provides the spiced aroma that defines the dish.

The step that matters

Combine and simmer. Simmering only briefly keeps the cream from separating and the fried cod from breaking apart. Gentle heat keeps the sauce smooth while the fish warms through.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, butter, flour, 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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