Why it works: Butter and white wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,083 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓
Curried Lobster
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the rice
Soak the rice for 3 hours.
Salt the rice.
Cook the rice in boiling water until tender, shaking occasionally.
Drain the rice.
Set the rice aside to dry.
Make the curried lobster
In a pan, heat the butter and oyster liquor together.
Season with curry powder and lemon peel.
Add the lobster, cut into half-inch pieces.
Toss the lobster until heated through.
Stir in the wine.
Serve
Serve on a heated dish.
On each plate, place a spoonful of rice and top with lobster.
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.
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Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,083 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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White wine + lemontop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,832 recipes
Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).
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Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,366 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
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Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,184 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
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Meat + ricetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,481 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Lobster
- Forms the main protein, staying tender when heated only until warmed through.
- Raw rice
- Soaking and boiling make it tender, giving the dish a soft base to hold the sauce.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness, carrying the curry flavor through the pan.
- Oyster liquor
- Adds briny, savory moisture that forms the base of the sauce.
- White wine
- Adds acidity and brightness, balancing the richness of the butter and liquor.
- Curry powder
- Provides aroma and warm spice flavor, blooming in the hot butter.
The step that matters
Toss the lobster until heated through. Lobster turns rubbery and dry when overcooked, so it should be warmed gently just until hot and then not held over heat.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, butter, oyster, white wine, rice):
- Grapefits about as well
- Coconutfits about as well
- Applefits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against meat, butter, oyster, white wine, 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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