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Indian Timbale

A rice and fish timbale with eggs, white sauce, curry paste, coconut, and parmesan garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Turbot and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 248 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Indian Timbale

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil and dry the rice.

  2. Mince the cold turbot and hard-boiled eggs.

Mix and serve

  1. Moisten the mixture with white sauce and curry paste.

  2. Add the grated coconut and mix well.

  3. Serve garnished with a couple of spoonfuls of rice sprinkled with parmesan.

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. Turbot + saucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together248 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Rice + coconuttop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,063 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Rice + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together879 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Egg + parmesan cheesetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Sauce + parmesan cheesetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,294 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (soapy, waxy).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Forms the bulk of the timbale and gives it a light, starchy body once boiled and dried.
Turbot
Supplies the main flesh, giving the mixture its substance and savoury flavour.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add body and richness, binding the minced fish into a firmer mass.
White sauce
Adds moisture and creaminess, keeping the mixture from drying out.
Curry paste
Provides the spice and aroma that define the dish.
Grated coconut
Adds moisture, subtle sweetness and fat for a softer texture.

The step that matters

Dry the rice after boiling. Rice holding excess water will make the mixture soggy and loose, so it should be drained and dried before it is combined with the moist ingredients.

Swap the coconut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, turbot, egg, sauce, parmesan cheese):

  1. Lemonfits about as well
  2. Coconutthe original
  3. Grapefits less well
  4. Plumfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, turbot, egg, sauce, parmesan cheese. 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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