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Prawn Curry Fry

A quick prawn curry made with ghee, spices, coconut, and a splash of vinegar or lime.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Garlic and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Prawn Curry Fry

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Heat the ghee in a pan over medium heat.

  2. Fry the sliced onions until golden brown.

Cook and simmer

  1. Add the cleaned prawns and cook until browned.

  2. Grind the cumin, dried chillies, and mustard seeds with a little water to make a paste, then add to the pan.

  3. Continue frying for a few minutes, adding salt to taste.

  4. Extract the coconut milk from the grated coconut and add it to the pan.

  5. Let the mixture simmer for a while.

  6. Just before serving, stir in the vinegar or lime juice.

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. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Cumin + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,082 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Cumin + clovetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,306 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Mustard + garlictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Cumin + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,498 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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 browns and firms as it cooks.
Coconut
Supplies milk that adds richness and moisture to the curry.
Ghee
Carries the spices and onions, adding fat and a nutty, rich flavour.
Vinegar or lime juice
Adds acidity that brightens the finished dish.
Onion
Browns to add sweetness and body to the base.

The step that matters

Just before serving, stir in the vinegar or lime juice.. Acid is added late because prolonged heating dulls its bright, fresh flavour, and adding it early can make the coconut milk taste sharp.

Swap the coconut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ghee, cumin, mustard, clove, garlic, onion, vinegar):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Mangofits about as well
  4. Coconutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ghee, cumin, mustard, clove, garlic, onion, vinegar. 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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