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Prawn Currie

A curry made with prawns, onions, curry powder, and stock, finished with butter and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Prawn Currie

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix the curry powder and flour with a little water to form a smooth paste.

  2. Stir the paste into the stock or gravy soup and add the fried onion.

  3. Simmer in a stewpan until it thickens.

  4. Add the prawns and simmer for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally to avoid breaking them.

  5. Add the butter and vinegar, then simmer for an additional 15 minutes.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Flour + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + vinegartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

Flour and butter 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

Curry powder
Provides the spiced flavour that defines the dish.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it simmers, giving it body.
Stock or gravy soup
Forms the liquid base of the sauce.
Prawns
Provide the main protein and delicate sweet flavour.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring the prawns gently while they simmer. Prawns are delicate and their proteins toughen and break apart with vigorous handling or overcooking, so gentle stirring keeps them intact and tender.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, vinegar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, vinegar. 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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