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Curried Sardines

A baked dish of sardines in a curry sauce served over boiled rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,081 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Curried Sardines

Oven, in the book's wordsA sharp oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a sharp oven”. The 400°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the sauce

  1. Open the tin of sardines and pour the oil into a frying pan.

  2. Fry the chopped shallot in the oil until pale yellow.

  3. Pour off the oil.

  4. Add the curry powder and flour, frying briefly.

  5. Moisten the mixture with stock or water and boil for a few minutes.

Assemble and bake

  1. Skin the sardines.

  2. Place them in a buttered gratin dish.

  3. Pour the sauce over the sardines.

  4. Sprinkle with breadcrumbs and bits of butter.

  5. Bake in a hot oven (400°F/200°C) for 10 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve 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. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Shallot + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together284 recipes

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Flour + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Sardines
Provide the main protein and their oil, which carries the curry flavour into the frying pan.
Shallot
Softens into the oil and adds a mild, sweet onion-like base to the sauce.
Curry powder
Supplies the spiced aroma and colour that define the sauce; frying it briefly in oil wakes up its flavour.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the curry powder and stock.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, browned topping during baking.

The step that matters

Frying the curry powder and flour. Cooking spices briefly in fat releases their aroma, but burning them makes the sauce bitter. Keep the heat moderate and stir constantly, then add the liquid promptly so the flour can thicken smoothly.

Swap the shallot

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

  1. Leekfits about as well
  2. Shallotthe original
  3. Arrowrootfits about as well
  4. Okrafits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, 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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