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Prawn Curry

A curry made with prawns, ghee, onions, coconut milk, lime juice, and a curry spice mix.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Prawn Curry

Why it works: Coconut and lime match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 934 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Prawn Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and clean the prawns, discarding the heads.

  2. Prepare thick coconut milk.

  3. Prepare thin coconut milk.

Cook the curry

  1. Heat the ghee in a pan and brown the onions.

  2. Add the curry stuff and brown well.

  3. Add the prawns and salt, frying until nicely browned.

  4. Pour in 1 cup of thin coconut milk and cook for 15 minutes or until the gravy thickens.

  5. Stir in ½ cup of thick coconut milk and lime juice for flavor.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Coconut + limetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together934 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Onion + limetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,263 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Onion + coconuttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,831 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  4. Ghee + coconuttop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together180 recipes
  5. Ghee + oniontop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,310 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Prawns
Provide the main protein, which turns opaque and firm when cooked through.
Coconut milk
Adds richness and body to the gravy as it simmers and thickens.
Onion
Browning the onions builds sweetness and savoury depth for the gravy base.
Ghee
Fat for frying that carries the spices and browns the onions and prawns.
Lime juice
Adds acidity that brightens the finished curry.

The step that matters

Frying the prawns until nicely browned. Overcooked prawns turn rubbery, so they should be seared just until browned and opaque before the gravy is added and simmered.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ghee, coconut, lime):

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Arrowrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ghee, coconut, lime. 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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