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Curried Fish

A fish curry made with cod, onion, curry powder, coconut, stock, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and coconut are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,467 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Curried Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Fry the fish and onion

  1. Fry the fish in the butter.

  2. Remove the fish from the pan.

  3. Fry the onion until brown.

  4. Add the curry powder and fry slightly.

Simmer the curry

  1. Add the coconut, stock, sugar, and salt.

  2. Boil for 15 minutes.

  3. Divide the fish into large flakes and add to the curry.

  4. Boil for 5 minutes.

  5. Add the lemon juice.

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 + coconuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

  2. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Onion + coconuttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,831 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  5. Lemon + coconuttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 or other fish
Provides the main protein, which firms and flakes as it cooks in the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat for frying, carrying flavour and helping the fish brown lightly.
Onion
Browns to build sweetness and savoury depth as the base of the curry.
Curry powder
Frying it briefly in fat blooms its spices and deepens the aroma.
Coconut
Adds moisture, richness and a mild sweet flavour to the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the curry and balances its richness.

The step that matters

Boiling the fish in the curry. Once the fish is added, boiling hard for 5 minutes can toughen the flesh and break the flakes apart. Keeping the curry at a gentle simmer helps the fish stay tender and in large pieces.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, lemon, butter, flour, sugar, coconut):

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, lemon, butter, flour, sugar, coconut. 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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