Name: Curry with Cream and Eggs or Shrimps
Ingredients: 2 tablespoons curry powder; 2 tablespoons lemon juice; 2 cups stock; 1 cup cream; 2 eggs or 1 cup cooked shrimps; Salt to taste; Cooked cauliflower or spinach (for serving)

Why it works: Lemon and cauliflower work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 179 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Curry with Cream and Eggs or Shrimps

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curry

Heat curry powder and lemon juice in a pan for 3 minutes.
Add stock and stir until it boils.
Let it simmer on low heat for 10 minutes.

Finish and serve

Stir in cream and eggs or shrimps, and heat through.
Season to taste and serve on a small hot dish or in ramekin cases.

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.

Lemon + cauliflowertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together179 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together44,316 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together42,166 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Cream + cauliflowertop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together284 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Lemon + creamtop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together15,640 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Lemon and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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

Curry powder: Provides the main spiced flavour of the sauce.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the curry and balances the spices.
Stock: Forms the liquid base of the sauce.
Cream: Adds richness and a smooth, mellow texture to the sauce.
Eggs: Thicken and set gently in the hot sauce, giving body when heated through.

The step that matters

Stir in cream and eggs or shrimps, and heat through. Eggs set when heated, so if the sauce boils hard after they go in they can curdle and turn grainy. Keep the heat gentle and stir while they warm through.

Swap the cauliflower

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, cream, egg):

Spinachfits better
Asparagusfits better
Leekfits better
Cauliflowerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, cream, egg. 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.

Lemon Sauce236 recipes

Cauliflower Soup28 recipes

Cream of Cauliflower Soup22 recipes

Creamed Cauliflower17 recipes

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Curry with Cream and Eggs or Shrimps