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Fish Curry

A fish curry made with oil, raw grain, ghee, spices, and acidity from tamarind or citrus.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Cumin and turmeric match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,698 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Fish Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Dip the fish slices in oil and rub with pounded raw grain; let sit briefly, then wash off.

  2. Partially fry the fish in ghee with salt, dried chillies, fenugreek seeds, and black cumin.

Make the spice mixture

  1. Mix dried pounded chillies, roasted turmeric, coriander seeds, fenugreek, black cumin, sliced onion, and pounded garlic.

Cook the curry

  1. Cover the fish with the spice mixture and return it to the ghee with the fried chillies.

  2. Add enough water to cook the fish, and adjust acidity with tamarind juice, green mangoes, vinegar, or lemon.

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. Cumin + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,698 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Cumin + coriandertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,866 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Fenugreek + cumintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together178 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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, cooked through in the spiced sauce.
Ghee
Carries the spices and adds richness and a nutty, rounded flavour to the frying.
Dried chillies
Provide heat and colour to the curry.
Pounded raw grain
Rubbed onto the fish to coat the surface and help firm it before washing off.
Sliced onion
Adds sweetness and body to the spice base as it softens.
Tamarind juice, green mangoes, vinegar, or lemon
Adds acidity that brightens and balances the rich, spiced sauce.

The step that matters

Partially frying the fish in ghee. Frying only partly, rather than fully, keeps the delicate fish from breaking apart when it returns to the sauce for the final cooking. Fish proteins set and firm with heat, so overcooking early makes the slices dry and crumbly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, ghee, fenugreek, cumin, turmeric, coriander, clove. 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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