Skip to main content
Main

Lobster Curry

A lobster curry made with lobster meat, mace, veal gravy, cream, curry powder, flour, butter, salt, and lemon juice.

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

Why it works: Lobster and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,050 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Lobster Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a stewpan, combine the lobster meat, mace, veal gravy, and cream.

  2. In a bowl, mix the curry powder, flour, and butter until smooth.

Simmer and serve

  1. Add the curry mixture and salt to the lobster and simmer for 1 hour.

  2. Stir in the lemon juice gently 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. Lobster + creamtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Meat + lobstertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together909 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Flour and butter 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

Lobster meat
Provides the main protein and sweet flavor of the dish.
Veal gravy
Adds savory depth and body to the sauce as it simmers.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the sauce.
Curry powder
Supplies the warm, aromatic spice flavor that defines the dish.
Flour
Thickens the sauce so it clings to the lobster.
Butter
Adds fat for smoothness and carries the curry flavors.

The step that matters

Stirring in the lemon juice gently before serving. Acid can curdle cream-based sauces if overworked or overheated, so adding the lemon juice gently and off the heat keeps the sauce smooth and the flavor bright.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, lobster, veal, cream, flour, butter, lemon):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, lobster, veal, cream, flour, butter, 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.

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesLobster SauceLobster Sauce174 recipesLobster CroquettesLobster Croquettes99 recipesMeat CroquettesMeat Croquettes52 recipes