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Curried Cod

A fish dish with cod, apple, onions, curry, flour, butter, and lemon, simmered in water and served over rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Curried Cod

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curry sauce

  1. Chop the onion and apple (or other fruit) very finely.

  2. Fry the chopped onion and apple in butter until golden brown.

  3. Stir in the curry powder, flour, salt, and pepper.

  4. Gradually add the water, stirring until it boils.

  5. Simmer gently for 30 minutes.

  6. Stir in the lemon juice.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the fish, cut into nice pieces, and heat through.

  2. Serve in a border of 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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Flour and butter 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
Provides the main protein; it is already cooked, so it only needs heating through in the sauce.
Onions
Soften and turn golden during frying, adding sweetness and a savoury base to the sauce.
Apple
Adds a sour, fruity note that balances the richness of the curry.
Curry powder
Supplies the spice flavour and aroma that defines the dish.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a sauce when cooked with the butter and curry powder.
Butter
Carries the frying of the onion and apple and adds richness to the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the water gradually. Adding the water slowly while stirring keeps the flour smooth and lump-free, so the sauce thickens evenly instead of forming clumps that are hard to remove.

Swap the apple

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

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

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