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Curried Cod

A cod dish simmered in a curry sauce with onion, butter, stock, cream, and lemon, served over rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Curried Cod

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the skin and bones from the cod and cut the flesh into 1-inch pieces.

  2. Melt the butter in a saucepan and fry the chopped onion until soft.

  3. Add the curry powder and chutney, stir for a few minutes.

Make the sauce and cook the fish

  1. Pour in the white stock, season with salt, and boil gently for 20 minutes, stirring frequently.

  2. Add the fish, cover the pan, and cook for 10 more minutes without breaking the pieces.

  3. Remove the fish and place it on a dish.

Finish and serve

  1. Add cream and lemon juice to the cooking liquid, pour it over the fish, and serve hot with boiled 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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Lemon + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

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

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, which flakes into tender pieces when gently cooked.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and carries the flavour of the fried onion and spices.
Onion
Softens and sweetens as it fries, forming the aromatic base of the sauce.
Curry powder
Supplies the spiced aroma and flavour that defines the dish.
White stock
Forms the cooking liquid that becomes the sauce around the fish.
Cream
Adds moisture and a smooth, rounded texture to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the fish and keeping it intact. Cod is delicate and flakes easily. Gentle simmering with the pan covered cooks the fish through slowly, and avoiding stirring or rough handling keeps the pieces whole rather than breaking apart into the sauce.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, cream, 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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