Skip to main content
Main

Curry of Oysters

A coconut and apple flavored oyster curry cooked with butter, cream, curry powder, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Curry of Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curry base

  1. Melt the butter in a pan and fry the coconut, apple, and onion until soft.

  2. Add the oysters and bring to a boil.

  3. Slowly mix the cream with the curry powder and flour.

  4. Add the mixture to the pan.

  5. Let it boil for one minute.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove from heat and stir in the lemon juice.

  2. Serve immediately with boiled 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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Coconut + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Coconut + appletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together274 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylethanol (rose, floral).

  5. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, 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

Oysters
Provide the main protein and their juice adds savory liquid to the sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and body, giving the sauce a smooth, creamy texture.
Flour
Thickens the cream and curry mixture into a sauce as it boils.
Curry powder
Supplies the warm, spiced aroma that defines the dish.
Apple
Adds mild sweetness and soft texture that balances the spices.
Butter
Fat for frying the aromatics, carrying flavor and adding richness.

The step that matters

Adding the cream and flour mixture. Mixing the cream with curry powder and flour slowly keeps the flour from clumping. Once boiled for a minute, the starch thickens the sauce; stirring in lemon juice off the heat preserves its bright acidity.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, coconut, onion, butter, cream, flour, lemon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, coconut, onion, butter, cream, flour, lemon. 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.

More oyster curry recipes

Tartlets 3 See all 28 →

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesApple SoupApple Soup33 recipesMock Oyster SoupMock Oyster Soup21 recipesCorn FrittersCorn Fritters6 recipes