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Currie of Fish

A fish curry made with curry powder, onion, garlic, coconut milk, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Currie of Fish

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Heat oil in a pan over medium heat.

  2. Add chopped onion and minced garlic; sauté until soft.

  3. Stir in curry powder and cook for 1 minute.

Cook and serve

  1. Add fish and cook until it is opaque.

  2. Pour in coconut milk, season with salt and pepper, and simmer for 10 minutes.

  3. Serve hot with 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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Garlic + peppertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Coconut + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,648 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Provides the main protein, which firms and turns opaque as it cooks.
Curry powder
Supplies the spice blend that gives the dish its characteristic aroma and flavour.
Onion
Adds sweetness and body to the base as it softens in the oil.
Coconut milk
Adds fat and creaminess, giving the sauce a rich, smooth texture.

The step that matters

Add fish and cook until it is opaque. Fish cooks quickly and can turn dry or tough if overcooked. Watching for opacity helps it stay tender before the sauce simmers.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Coconutthe original
  4. Mangofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, onion, garlic, milk, 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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