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Lobster, Curried

A lobster curry made with Patna rice, milk, curry powder, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,374 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Lobster, Curried

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rice

  1. Prepare, boil, and dry the rice carefully.

Make the curry sauce

  1. Melt butter in a saucepan and fry the onion until lightly browned.

  2. Add the flour and curry powder, cooking for 2-3 minutes.

  3. Pour in the milk and boil for a few minutes, stirring continuously.

Finish and serve

  1. Divide the lobster into pieces and add it to the curry sauce with the rice.

  2. Add lemon juice and salt to taste.

  3. Let the saucepan sit by the side of the heat until thoroughly hot, then serve.

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. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Rice + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

  3. Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

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

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
Provides the main protein and seafood flavour of the curry.
Patna rice
Forms the starchy base that the curry sauce is served over.
Milk
Forms the creamy body of the sauce and mellows the spice.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the fat and liquid.
Curry powder
Supplies the spice blend that gives the curry its main aroma and flavour.
Onion
Adds sweetness and savoury depth when browned in butter.

The step that matters

Stirring the milk into the flour and curry mixture. Flour thickens sauces only when it is evenly dispersed in liquid. Adding milk gradually while stirring constantly and boiling prevents lumps and lets the starch swell smoothly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, rice, milk, flour, onion. 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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