Skip to main content
Main

Curried Cod

A cod dish simmered in a curry-flavored gravy with onions, apples, and rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Onion and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,433 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Curried Cod

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a stewpan over medium heat.

  2. Add the chopped onion and apple, and fry until light brown.

  3. In a bowl, mix the curry powder, cornflour, mulligatawny paste, and salt with a little gravy to form a smooth paste.

  4. Add the paste to the frying pan and stir in the remaining gravy.

  5. Bring to a boil, then let it simmer gently for 10 minutes.

  6. Strain the sauce into a clean saucepan and add the cod.

Cook and serve

  1. Simmer the cod for 30 minutes.

  2. Remove the fish and pour the sauce around it.

  3. Garnish with hard-boiled eggs if desired.

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. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Apple + ricetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,311 recipes

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

  3. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

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

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

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

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, becoming tender as it simmers gently in the sauce.
Onion
Softens and browns during frying, adding sweetness and savory depth to the sauce.
Apple
Softens into the sauce, adding gentle sweetness that balances the curry spices.
Curry powder
Provides the main spiced aroma and flavor that defines the dish.
Cornflour
Thickens the sauce so it clings to the fish instead of running off.
Butter
Fats the onion and apple as they fry, carrying flavor and aiding browning.

The step that matters

Simmering the cod gently. Fish is delicate; a hard boil toughens its proteins and breaks it apart, so keep the sauce at a gentle simmer while the cod cooks.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, butter, rice):

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter, rice. 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.

You might also like

Rice FrittersRice Fritters84 recipesSteamed RiceSteamed Rice48 recipesApple SoupApple Soup33 recipesRice Griddle CakesRice Griddle Cakes28 recipes