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Lobster Curry

A stew of lobster meat simmered with mace, veal stock, curry powder, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Lobster Curry

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Place the lobster meat in a stew pan.

  2. Add the blade of mace, veal stock, and cornstarch mixed with a little milk or cream.

  3. Season with salt, add butter, curry powder, and lemon juice.

  4. Simmer for 1 hour, then serve.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  3. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

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

  5. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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, which firms and turns opaque as it cooks in the sauce.
Cornstarch
Thickens the liquid into a smooth sauce as it heats and gelatinizes.
Veal stock
Forms the savory liquid base that carries the curry flavour through the dish.
Curry powder
Supplies the dominant spice aroma and warm flavour of the curry.
Butter
Adds richness and a rounded mouthfeel to the sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer for 1 hour. Lobster becomes tough and rubbery when overcooked, so a long simmer can toughen the meat even as it softens the spices. Keep the heat gentle and watch the texture of the lobster through the cooking time.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, lobster, veal, milk, 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.

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