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Curry of Lobster, Crab, or Prawns

A curry made with lobster, crab, or prawns, mace, veal gravy, cream, butter, curry powder, flour, salt, lemon juice, served with boiled rice.

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. Pick out all the meat and place it in a stewpan.

  2. Add mace, veal gravy, cream, butter, curry powder, and flour.

  3. Mix everything together until smooth and simmer for 45-60 minutes.

  4. Add salt and lemon juice to taste.

Serve

  1. 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 prawn meat
Provides the main protein and sweet seafood flavor of the curry.
Rich veal gravy
Adds savory depth and body to the sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and rich flavor to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce so it becomes smooth and clings to the meat.
Curry powder
Supplies the warm, spiced aroma that defines the dish.

The step that matters

Simmering the sauce smooth. Flour must be fully mixed in before and during simmering so it hydrates and thickens the sauce without lumps. Gentle simmering for the full time lets the raw starch taste cook off and the sauce thicken evenly. Adding the meat without stirring can leave flour clumps.

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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