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Lobster Curry

A stew of lobster meat simmered with mace, veal stock, corn starch, milk, butter, curry powder, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Lobster Curry

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine lobster meat, mace, veal stock, and corn starch mixed with milk in a stew pan.

  2. Add salt, butter, curry powder, and lemon juice.

  3. Simmer for 1 hour.

  4. Serve hot.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Corn + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

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

  4. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Meat + lobstertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together909 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Lobster meat
Provides the main protein and sweet, delicate flavour that the sauce carries.
Corn starch
Thickens the stock and milk into a smooth, glossy sauce as it heats.
Veal stock or gravy
Forms the savoury liquid base that gives the curry body and depth.
Curry powder
Adds warm spice aroma and flavour that permeates the sauce during simmering.
Milk or cream
Adds richness and softens the curry's sharpness, rounding out the sauce.

The step that matters

Simmering the sauce. Corn starch must reach a simmer to fully thicken, but a long, vigorous boil can break the milk or cream and toughen the lobster. Keep the heat gentle and steady.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, lobster, veal, corn, milk, butter, lemon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, lobster, veal, corn, milk, butter, lemon. 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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