Why it works: Onion and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 42,912 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓
Curried Lobster
Ingredients
Directions
Make the curry
Brown the onion in butter in a saucepan.
Add the curry powder, soup stock, and salt; boil for five minutes.
Stir in the lobster and heat through.
Serve
Serve immediately with boiled rice.
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.
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Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together42,912 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
-
Lobster + buttertop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,609 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
-
Lobster + oniontop 24% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together474 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Lobster
- Provides the main protein, which becomes tender and sweet when gently heated through in the sauce.
- Curry powder
- Supplies the spice and aroma that define the dish's flavour.
- Onion
- Browned in butter to build a sweeter, savoury base for the sauce.
- Soup stock
- Forms the liquid base that carries the curry flavour and moistens the lobster.
The step that matters
Stir in the lobster and heat through. Cooked lobster toughens and turns rubbery if overheated, so it should only be warmed through in the simmering sauce just until heated.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, butter):
- Potatofits about as well
- Onionthe original
- Mustardfits about as well
- Chivefits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, butter. 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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