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Curried Fish

A curry sauce made with onion, butter, curry powder, flour, milk or cream, and cold boiled fish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Curried Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a skillet, cook the onion in butter over medium heat for 5 minutes, being careful not to burn it.

  2. Mix the curry powder with the flour and stir into the melted butter.

  3. Gradually add the milk or cream, stirring constantly until smooth.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the cold boiled fish and let it simmer for a few minutes.

  2. Serve very hot.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + fishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + fishtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,432 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Flour
Thickens the milk or cream into a smooth, saucy base.
Butter
Carries the onion and spices and adds richness to the sauce.
Milk or cream
Forms the liquid base of the sauce and adds creaminess.
Curry powder
Provides the main spiced aroma and flavour of the dish.
Cold boiled fish
Forms the protein of the dish and is warmed through in the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the milk or cream. Adding liquid gradually while stirring constantly keeps the flour dispersed, so the sauce becomes smooth rather than lumpy as the starch hydrates and thickens.

Swap the onion

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

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

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