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Indian Receipt for Curried Fish

A fish dish simmered in butter, garlic, onion, and Bengal curry powder, finished with lemon juice or chili vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Garlic and onion 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 ↓

Indian Receipt for Curried Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Remove the fish from the bones and cut it into 1.5‑inch squares.

  2. Place the fish in a stewpan and add enough hot water to barely cover it.

  3. Sprinkle salt over the fish.

  4. Boil gently until half cooked.

  5. Remove the fish with a slotted spoon.

  6. Pour the cooking liquid into a basin, skimming off any scum.

Make the curry

  1. Melt the butter until slightly browned.

  2. Add the minced garlic and thinly sliced onion and fry until well colored.

  3. Add the fish to the pan and stir in the curry powder.

  4. Cover the pan and shake it often until the fish is nicely browned.

  5. Gradually add the reserved cooking liquid.

  6. Simmer until the fish is fully cooked but not falling apart.

  7. Stir in lemon juice or chili vinegar to taste.

Serve

  1. Serve hot.

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. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

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

  3. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Provides the main protein, which firms and flakes as it cooks in the curry.
Butter
Carries the curry spices and adds richness and browning to the onion base.
Onion
Fried until well colored, it builds sweetness and savory depth for the sauce.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma that mellows as it fries in the butter.
Bengal curry powder
Supplies the main spice flavor and aroma of the dish.

The step that matters

Simmer until the fish is fully cooked but not falling apart. Fish proteins set quickly with heat and then break down if overcooked or stirred hard, so gentle simmering keeps the pieces intact while cooking them through.

Swap the clove

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, butter, garlic, onion, 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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