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Lobster Curried

A stew of lobster meat cooked with curry powder, butter, onion, fish stock, lemon juice, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Meat and fish work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 479 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Lobster Curried

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curry base

  1. In a stewpan, combine curry powder, butter, and sliced onion.

  2. Cook until the onion is soft.

  3. Add fish stock and simmer for a few minutes.

Finish

  1. Stir in the lobster meat and simmer gently for 1 hour.

  2. Squeeze in the lemon juice and season with salt.

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. Meat + fishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together479 recipes

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

  2. Butter + fishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

  3. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Fish + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,889 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster meat
Forms the main protein, becoming tender and flavourful as it simmers in the sauce.
Curry powder
Supplies the spice blend that gives the dish its characteristic aroma and flavour.
Butter
Carries the curry spices and adds richness and fat to the sauce.
Onion
Softens to add sweetness and body to the curry base.
Fish stock
Adds liquid and savoury depth, letting the sauce simmer and thicken gently.

The step that matters

Simmering the lobster gently. Lobster meat turns rubbery and tough when overcooked. A gentle simmer keeps it tender while the sauce develops flavour.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, butter, onion, fish):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, butter, onion, fish. 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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