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Lobster and Chicken Curry

A curry of cold cooked chicken and lobster with onions, butter, curry powder, and rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,769 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

Lobster and Chicken Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curry

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and add the sliced onions. Stir occasionally until they begin to brown.

  2. Add the chicken, lobster, curry powder, and enough boiling water to cover the ingredients. Season with salt and pepper.

  3. Let the curry cook gently for 30 minutes.

Cook the rice

  1. Meanwhile, cook the rice in salted boiling water for 20 minutes. Drain the water.

  2. Place the saucepan with the rice in the oven to dry.

Serve

  1. Serve the curry and rice together.

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. Chicken + ricetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,769 recipes

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

  2. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

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

  3. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Pepper + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster
Provides the main seafood flavor and tender, delicate pieces that cook through in the curry.
Cold cooked chicken
Adds protein and body, absorbing the curry sauce as it simmers.
White onions
Browning in butter builds sweetness and savory depth as the base of the sauce.
Curry powder
Supplies the spice blend that gives the dish its characteristic warm aroma and color.
Butter
Carries the spices and helps the onions brown, adding richness to the sauce.
Rice
Absorbs the curry sauce as a neutral starch that balances the rich, spiced flavors.

The step that matters

Browning the onions. Onions that are only softened stay pale and sharp; cooking them until golden develops sweetness and depth through browning, which gives the curry its base flavor.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, lobster, butter, pepper, 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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