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Cod, Curried

A cod dish simmered in a curry‑flavored stock with onions, butter, flour, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Cod, Curried

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Wash and dry the cod, then cut it into pieces about 1½ inches square.

  2. Melt the butter or fat in a stewpan and lightly fry the cod, then remove and set aside.

Make the sauce

  1. Add the sliced onion, flour, and curry powder to the fat in the stewpan, frying for about 15 minutes while stirring continuously.

  2. Pour in the stock, stir until it boils, then simmer gently for about 20 minutes.

  3. Strain the mixture and return it to the saucepan, adding lemon juice and seasoning to taste.

  4. Bring nearly to boiling point, then cover and let it sit for about 30 minutes to blend the flavors, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking.

Serve

  1. Serve the curry 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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 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
Forms the main body of the dish, flaking tender in the finished curry.
Onion
Softens and sweetens as it fries, adding body to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth, lightly bodied sauce.
Curry powder
Supplies the spice aroma and flavor that defines the dish.
Butter or good fat
Carries the spices and gives the cod and sauce a rich mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Frying the onion, flour and curry powder. Cooking the flour and spices in fat for a full fifteen minutes, while stirring constantly, cooks out the raw flour taste and toasts the curry powder. Stopping early or letting it scorch leaves a pasty or bitter sauce.

Swap the onion

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

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

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