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Curried Cod

Curried Cod is a fish dish with onions, curry powder, cayenne pepper, cream, butter, salt, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter 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 and fry

  1. Cut handsome steaks of cod and slice a number of onions.

  2. Fry the cod and onions until they are a good brown color.

Stew and serve

  1. Stew the fish in white gravy.

  2. Add curry powder, cayenne pepper, cream, butter, salt, and flour to thicken.

  3. Serve hot.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 steaks
Forms the main protein, which flakes once cooked through in the gravy.
Onions
Browning when fried adds sweetness and savory depth to the dish.
Curry powder
Supplies the warm, aromatic spice flavor that defines the dish.
Cream
Adds richness and body to the gravy, softening the heat of the spices.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a gravy that clings to the fish.

The step that matters

Frying the cod and onions to a good brown. Browning through the Maillard reaction builds deep, savory flavor. Stopping too early leaves the base pale and bland, while overcooking dries the fish and makes the onions bitter.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, cream, butter, flour. 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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