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Curry

A fish curry simmered in ghee with chilies, fenugreek, coriander, and optional vegetables.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Curry

Why it works: Fenugreek and turmeric match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 229 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Wash the fish with oil, then rinse the fish in water to remove the oil.

  2. Fry the fish in ghee with a sufficient amount of salt until cooked.

Make the curry

  1. Add dried chilies, fenugreek seeds, and kalah gerah to the ghee.

  2. Mix the fish with pounded dried chilies, turmeric, roasted coriander seeds, fenugreek, sliced onions, and minced garlic.

  3. Rub the mixture well over the fish.

  4. Place the fish back into the ghee with the fried chilies.

  5. Add enough water to boil the fish.

  6. Add tamarind juice, green mangoes, vinegar, or lemon juice for acidity.

  7. If using vegetables, layer them with the fish in the pot, shaking gently to prevent breaking.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Fenugreek + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together229 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Turmeric + coriandertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,253 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Fenugreek + coriandertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together236 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Coriander + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Forms the main body of the dish and absorbs the spice and acid flavours as it simmers.
Dried chilies
Provide heat and colour to the ghee and spice paste.
Sliced onions
Add sweetness and body to the sauce as they soften and brown slightly.
Tamarind juice, green mangoes, vinegar, or lemon juice
Add acidity that brightens the curry and balances the richness of the ghee.
Ghee
Adds fat and a rich, nutty aroma to the frying and the sauce.

The step that matters

Shaking gently when adding vegetables. Fish flakes and breaks easily once cooked, so layering vegetables in the pot and shaking the pot gently, rather than stirring, keeps the pieces whole while the sauce coats them.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, ghee, fenugreek, turmeric, coriander, onion, garlic):

  1. Cuminfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, ghee, fenugreek, turmeric, coriander, onion, garlic. 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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