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Indian Timbales

A gelatin-based dish of flaked fish mixed with lemon, cayenne, and curry, set in small moulds and garnished with cucumber.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Indian Timbales

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter and flour together until smooth.

  2. Add the water and boil for a few minutes.

  3. Stir in lemon juice, cayenne, and curry powder.

  4. Remove from heat and let cool.

Set and serve

  1. Dissolve the gelatine in a little hot water and stir it in.

  2. When it begins to set, fold in the flaked fish.

  3. Pour the mixture into small moulds.

  4. Garnish with sliced cucumber before serving.

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. Lemon + cucumbertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,067 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + cucumbertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,991 recipes

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

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

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

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

Butter
Enriches the base and carries flavour, giving a rich, smooth texture.
Flour
Thickens the butter and water into a smooth sauce base.
Curry powder
Provides the main spiced flavour of the timbale.
Gelatine
Sets the mixture so it holds its shape when turned out of the moulds.
Small cooked fish, flaked
Supplies the main protein and flaky texture of the filling.

The step that matters

Fold in the fish only when the mixture begins to set. If the gelatine has not started to thicken, the flaked fish will sink and settle unevenly, and if it has set too far the fish cannot be mixed through smoothly, so the timbales will be patchy in texture.

Swap the cucumber

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

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