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A Fish Currie

A fish curry made with salted fish, curry powder, butter, shallot, onions, pepper, sea salt, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,431 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

A Fish Currie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Cut the salted fish into pieces.

Cook the curry

  1. In a pot, mix water with curry powder and bring to a boil.

  2. Add the fish and simmer until tender.

Finish the stew

  1. In a skillet, melt butter and sauté shallot and onions until browned.

  2. Add the sautéed mixture to the fish and stew together.

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. Shallot + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,431 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. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

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

  4. Butter + fishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Salted fish
Provides the main protein and a seasoned, firm flesh that holds up during simmering.
Curry powder
Supplies the spice base that flavours the water and the whole stew.
Butter
Carries the aromatics and adds richness and browning to the onion mixture.
Onions
Browned in butter, they add sweetness and body to the sauce.
Shallot
Adds a mild, sharp aromatic note that deepens the sautéed base.

The step that matters

Simmering the fish until tender. Simmering gently keeps the fish moist and intact; a hard boil toughens proteins and breaks the flesh apart. Salted fish also needs to be tender before the onion mixture is added, so the texture is set at this stage.

Swap the shallot

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Shallotthe original

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