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Curry of Lobster, Crab, or Prawns

A creamy shellfish curry made with lobster, crab, or prawns, mace, veal gravy, cream, butter, curry powder, flour, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Curry of Lobster, Crab, or Prawns

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curry

  1. Remove the meat from the lobster, crab, or prawns and place it in a stewpan.

  2. Add mace, veal gravy, cream, butter, curry powder, and flour; mix until smooth.

  3. Simmer the mixture for 45 minutes to 1 hour.

Finish and serve

  1. Season with salt and add the lemon juice.

  2. Serve in a deep dish with boiled rice.

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. Lemon + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster, crab, or prawns meat
Forms the main protein of the dish, giving it its sweet seafood flavor.
Veal gravy
Provides a rich, savory base that carries the sauce and adds body.
Cream
Adds fat and smoothness, softening the sauce and rounding the curry flavor.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and carries the curry powder's aroma.
Flour
Thickens the sauce so it clings to the seafood and rice.

The step that matters

Simmering the mixture. Flour thickens the sauce only as it simmers, so stopping early leaves it thin and floury-tasting. Keep the heat low and stir to prevent sticking and scorching on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the mace

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

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

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