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Curry of Lobster

A creamy lobster curry made with butter, onion, flour, curry powder, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Curry of Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curry base

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the chopped onion and brown it.

  3. Stir in the flour and curry powder until smooth and brown.

  4. Add the stock and cook for 5 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the lobster and heat through.

  2. Season with salt and 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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + lobstertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Flour + lobstertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,034 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Butter
Carries the onion and spices and gives the base a rich, savory flavor.
Onion
Softens and browns to add sweetness and depth to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce as it cooks with the butter.
Curry powder
Supplies the warm, aromatic spice flavor that defines the dish.
Stock
Forms the liquid body of the curry sauce.
Lobster
Provides the main protein and its delicate sweet flavor.

The step that matters

Stir in the flour and curry powder until smooth and brown. Flour must be cooked into the fat so it thickens smoothly without lumps or a raw taste. Toasting the curry powder in fat also wakes up its aromatic compounds, so stir constantly and do not let the mixture scorch.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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