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Curried Fish

Curried fish is a dish of cooked white fish simmered in a curry sauce with apple, onion, butter, fish stock, and rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Curried Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the apple and onion.

Make the curry sauce

  1. In a pan, brown the apple and onion in butter.

  2. Stir in the flour and curry powder.

  3. Gradually add the fish stock, skimming when boiling.

  4. Simmer slowly for 30 minutes.

  5. Stir in the lemon juice and a small teaspoon of sugar.

  6. Strain the mixture and return it to the saucepan.

Finish and serve

  1. Cut the fish into neat pieces and add to the saucepan until heated through.

  2. Serve with a border of rice.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Pepper + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Fat that browns the apple and onion, adding richness and a toasted flavour to the base.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce as it cooks with the curry powder.
Curry powder
Supplies the spiced aroma and flavour that define the dish.
Fish stock
Forms the liquid of the sauce and carries the flavours during the slow simmer.
Apple
Adds natural sweetness and body that softens into the sauce.
Lemon juice or vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the sweetness and spice.

The step that matters

Gradually add the fish stock, skimming when boiling.. Adding stock slowly into the flour and curry mixture keeps it smooth without lumps, since flour clumps when hit with liquid all at once. Skimming removes foam and impurities that would cloud the sauce.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, butter, onion, flour, lemon, pepper, 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.

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