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Curry with Cream and Eggs or Shrimps

A curry simmered with cream and eggs or shrimp, seasoned with curry powder, lemon juice, stock, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 44,316 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

Curry with Cream and Eggs or Shrimps

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curry

  1. Heat the curry powder and lemon juice in a pan for 3 minutes.

  2. Add the stock and stir until it boils.

  3. Let it simmer on low heat for 10 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the cream and eggs or shrimps until heated through.

  2. Season with salt and serve in a small hot dish or china ramekin.

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. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  2. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. 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 spice flavour and aroma as it warms in the pan.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the spices and balances the richness of the cream.
Stock
Forms the liquid base of the sauce and carries the flavour through the simmer.
Cream
Adds fat and body, giving the sauce a smooth, rich texture.
Eggs
Thicken the sauce gently and add richness when stirred in with the heat.

The step that matters

Stirring in the eggs or shrimps. Eggs set when heated, so adding them to a hot sauce without stirring can scramble them. Keeping the heat low and stirring gently until heated through gives a smooth, lightly thickened result.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raspberryfits better
  3. Strawberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against 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.

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