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Ceylon Prawn Curry

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and coconut are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,467 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Ceylon Prawn Curry

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cut the cucumber lengthwise into quarters, remove seeds, and peel the skin.

  2. Cut the cucumber into 2-inch long and 1-inch thick pieces.

  3. In a stew-pan, combine cucumber pieces, boiling water, butter, and salt. Blanch for 3 minutes.

  4. Simmer until three-quarters done, then drain and cover the cucumber pieces.

  5. Shell the prawns, removing heads and cleaning the back. Rinse in spring water and dry with a cloth.

  6. Dust the cleaned prawns with flour and set aside.

  7. Extract water from the coconut and save it. Remove the white flesh and rasp it into a bowl.

  8. Pour 1 cup of boiling water over the coconut raspings and let it sit for 15 minutes, then strain the liquid.

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 + coconuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cucumber + coconuttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together154 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Cucumber + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + coconuttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,315 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Swap the cucumber

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

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, coconut. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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