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Curried Fish

A fish dish simmered with butter, onions, pepper, and curry powder, served over dry boiled rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,433 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Curried Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Half-boil the fish and cut it into pieces.

Make the curry

  1. In a stewpan, melt butter and add chopped onions and pepper.

  2. Add the fish and stew until soft.

  3. Stir in the curry powder and stew a little longer.

Serve

  1. Serve with very dry boiled rice on a separate dish.

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

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Fish + ricetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together270 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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 softens and flakes as it stews in the curry.
Butter
Carries the curry powder's aroma and adds richness to the sauce.
Chopped onions
Soften as they cook, adding sweetness and body to the sauce.
Curry powder
Supplies the spice flavour and aroma that defines the dish.

The step that matters

Stir in the curry powder and stew a little longer. Curry powder contains fat-soluble aromatic compounds that bloom when briefly cooked in hot butter. Stewing a little longer helps mellow the raw spice taste, but overcooking can scorch it and make the dish bitter.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, butter, pepper, rice. 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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