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Cod, Curried

A cod dish simmered in a curry‑flavored sauce with onion, butter, flour, stock, and lemon.

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 ↓

Cod, Curried

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Wash and dry the cod, then cut it into pieces about 1½ inches square.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a pan over medium heat.

  2. Add the chopped onion and sauté until soft.

  3. Stir in the flour and curry powder, cooking for 1 minute.

  4. Gradually add the white stock, stirring until smooth.

Cook and serve

  1. Add the cod pieces, season with salt, pepper, and cayenne, and simmer until cooked through.

  2. Finish with lemon juice before serving.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 and flakes as it cooks through.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce when cooked with the butter.
Curry powder
Provides the spiced aroma and flavour that defines the dish.
Butter
Carries the flavour of the onion and spices and adds richness to the sauce.
White stock
Forms the liquid base of the sauce that the cod simmers in.
Onion
Adds sweetness and savoury base flavour as it softens in the butter.

The step that matters

Cooking the flour and curry powder. Cooking the flour and curry powder in fat for a minute toasts the spices and cooks out the raw starch taste, so the sauce tastes rich rather than floury when the stock is added.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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