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A fish curry made with browned fish, beef stock, onion, curry powder, served over rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Curry Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curry

  1. Lightly brown the fish pieces.

  2. Combine beef stock and finely chopped onion in a saucepan and boil until it becomes a pulp.

  3. Mix in 2 teaspoons of curry powder until smooth.

  4. Add the fish to the saucepan and heat until thoroughly hot.

Serve

  1. Carefully lift out the fish and pour the sauce over it in a serving dish.

  2. Serve with a wall of rice. Optionally, infuse mashed potatoes or mashed apples into the curry for added flavor.

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 + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Rice + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together851 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  4. Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef stock
Forms the liquid base of the sauce and carries the curry flavor.
Onion
Breaks down into a pulp that thickens the sauce and adds sweetness.
Curry powder
Supplies the spice and aroma that define the dish.
Fish
Provides the main protein; browning first adds colour and savoury flavor.

The step that matters

Boiling the stock and onion until pulpy. The onion must break down fully to thicken the sauce; if it stays in chunks the sauce will be thin and grainy. Curry powder added after a long boil can also taste raw or dull, so stir it in until smooth.

Swap the potato

The recipe marks potato as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, beef, onion, rice, apple):

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Tomatofits about as well
  3. Carrotfits less well
  4. Capsicumfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, beef, onion, rice, apple. 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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