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A Fish Currie

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

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

  1. Soak the fish in salt for several hours, then cut it into pieces.

Cook

  1. In a pot, combine the fish with enough water to cover it and add the curry powder.

  2. In a skillet, melt the butter and fry the minced shallot and onions with pepper and salt until browned.

  3. Add the browned mixture to the fish and stew everything together until the fish is tender.

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. Fish + buttertop 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

Cod, haddock, or mackerel
Provides the main protein, which becomes tender and flaky during stewing.
Butter
Carries the aromatics and adds richness, helping onions brown in the skillet.
Onions
Soften and brown to build sweetness and depth in the sauce.
Shallot
Adds a mild, aromatic onion flavor that complements the onions.
Curry powder
Supplies the spice blend that flavors the stew liquid and fish.

The step that matters

Browning the onions and shallot. Frying the onions until browned drives the Maillard reaction and caramelization, creating sweet, deep flavor. Pale or steamed onions leave the curry tasting flat and raw.

Swap the shallot

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

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

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