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Curry of Lobster

A lobster curry made with butter, onions, herbs, curry powder, and broth, finished with lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Curry of Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

  1. Break out the meat from the lobster and set aside.

Make the curry sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and sweat the onion, parsley, thyme, and lemon over medium heat.

  2. Add the curry powder and flour, cooking until well combined.

  3. Gradually stir in the strained gravy from the lobster body and bring to a boil.

  4. Let it simmer for 30 minutes, then strain through a sieve.

Finish and serve

  1. Season with salt and lemon juice, add the lobster meat, and keep warm for 1 hour.

  2. Bring to a boil again before serving.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Lobster + saucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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 the meat that is added at the end.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the curry powder and broth.
Curry powder
Supplies the main spiced aroma and flavour of the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and richness and helps soften the onion at the start.
Onion
Adds sweetness and body to the sauce as it sweats in the butter.

The step that matters

Keep the lobster warm without overcooking it. Lobster meat turns tough and rubbery when heated for long periods. Once the meat is added, holding it warm for an extended time or boiling it hard can toughen it, so gentle heat is safest.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, butter, parsley, thyme, lemon, flour, sauce):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, butter, parsley, thyme, lemon, flour, sauce. 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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