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Lobster Curry

A lobster curry made with curry powder, stock, onions, butter, flour, lemon juice, served over rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,433 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Lobster Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the meat from the shell of the lobster and cut it into neat square pieces.

  2. Mix the curry powder with the stock until smooth.

Make the curry

  1. Fry the minced onions in butter until tender but not browned.

  2. Sprinkle the flour over the onions, then add the curry mixture and stir until thickened.

  3. Add the lobster pieces and stew gently for 30 minutes.

  4. Just before serving, stir in the lemon juice.

Serve

  1. Serve the lobster on a hot dish with the sauce poured over it, alongside 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. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Lemon + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

Lobster
Provides the main protein and sweet, delicate meat that the sauce surrounds.
Curry powder
Supplies the spiced, aromatic flavour that defines the dish.
Onions
Soften into a sweet base that gives the sauce body and flavour.
Butter
Carries the onion and spice flavours and adds richness to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce so it clings to the lobster pieces.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, spiced sauce just before serving.

The step that matters

Stirring in the lemon juice just before serving. Acid added early can thin and dull the sauce after long stewing, and heat drives off its fresh brightness. Adding it at the end keeps the flavour lively.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, onion, butter, flour, rice):

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, onion, butter, flour, rice. 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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