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Currie of Lobsters, or Prawns

A curry made with lobsters or prawns, mace, veal gravy, cream, curry powder, flour, butter, lemon, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lobster and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,050 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Currie of Lobsters, or Prawns

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove shells from lobsters or prawns and place the meat in a pan.

  2. Add mace, veal gravy, and cream to the pan.

Make and simmer the curry

  1. In a bowl, mix curry powder, flour, and butter until smooth.

  2. Add the mixture to the pan and simmer for 1 hour.

Finish

  1. Squeeze in the juice of half a lemon and add salt to taste.

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. Lobster + creamtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,050 recipes

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

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Veal + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,580 recipes

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

Flour and butter 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

Lobsters or prawns
Provides the main protein, which turns tender and sweet as it cooks in the sauce.
Veal gravy
Adds savoury, meaty depth as the base of the sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky body to the sauce.
Curry powder
Supplies the warm, aromatic spice flavour that defines the dish.
Flour
Thickens the sauce by swelling with liquid during simmering.
Butter
Adds fat for a rich mouthfeel and carries the curry spice flavour.

The step that matters

Smooth the curry paste before adding it to the pan. If the curry powder, flour, and butter are not mixed until smooth, lumps of flour can form and stay in the sauce, leaving it uneven. Fully blending them first lets the flour disperse so it thickens the sauce evenly during the simmer.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

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