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Lobster Curry

A curry with lobster, onion, apple, and spices served over rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,433 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Lobster Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curry base

  1. In a pan, melt the butter and fry the sliced onion and apple until tender.

  2. Add the stock to the pan and bring to a simmer.

  3. In a bowl, mix equal parts flour and curry powder with a little of the stock to form a smooth paste.

  4. Stir the paste into the stock mixture and let it boil until the apple and onion are tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the lobster (drained) and chutney, and bring to a boil again.

  2. Serve hot 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. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Apple + ricetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,311 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 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

Butter
Fats the pan and carries flavor while the onion and apple soften.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth, lightly bodied sauce when combined with curry powder.
Curry powder
Provides the main spiced aroma and flavor of the sauce.
Apple
Softens into the sauce, adding mild sweetness that balances the curry spices.
Onion
Softens and sweetens as it cooks, forming the savory base of the sauce.
Lobster
Supplies the main protein and delicate sweet flavor of the dish.

The step that matters

Stirring the curry paste into the stock. Flour clumps if it is added dry or not blended smoothly with liquid first. Mixing it with a little stock into a smooth paste, then stirring it into the hot liquid, lets the starch dissolve evenly and thicken the sauce without lumps.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Avocadofits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, lemon, butter, flour, onion, 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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