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Currie of Lobsters or Prawns

A curry made with shelled lobsters or prawns, mace, veal gravy, cream, curry powder, flour, butter, lemon juice, and sea 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

  1. Place the shelled lobsters or prawns in a pan.

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

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

  4. Add this mixture to the pan and simmer for one hour.

  5. Squeeze in the lemon juice and season with salt before serving.

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 and sweet, delicate flavor of the curry.
Veal gravy
Adds savory depth and body to the sauce as its liquid base.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the sauce.
Curry powder
Supplies the warm, aromatic spice flavor that defines the dish.
Flour
Thickens the sauce so it clings to the seafood.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps bind the flour into a smooth paste.

The step that matters

Simmer with the flour and butter mixture. Flour must be fully blended into the butter before adding, or it forms lumps. Simmering gently for a long time lets the flour fully cook out and thicken the sauce without scorching or toughening the seafood.

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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