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Lobster Curry

A spicy lobster stew with coconut, curry, and apple, simmered in a buttery sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Coconut and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,467 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Lobster Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curry base

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Add the chopped onion, flour, and curry powder; fry gently for about 10 minutes.

  3. Stir in the stock, milk, curry paste, coconut, sliced apple, and salt; bring to a boil.

  4. Cover and simmer gently for about 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

Add the lobster and serve

  1. Remove the flesh from the lobster and cut it into 1‑inch square pieces.

  2. Strain the sauce through a fine sieve back into the saucepan; adjust seasoning and reheat.

  3. Just before boiling, add the lobster pieces, cover, and let sit off the heat for 15‑20 minutes.

  4. Add lemon juice to taste and serve 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. Coconut + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Coconut + appletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together274 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylethanol (rose, floral).

  5. Coconut + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,831 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

Lobster
Provides the main protein; gentle off-heat finishing keeps the flesh tender and moist.
Butter
Carries the curry spices and adds richness to the base.
Flour
Thickens the sauce so it clings to the lobster pieces.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softens the sharpness of the spices.
Onion
Builds sweetness and body as it softens and browns slowly in fat.
Apple
Adds natural sweetness and acidity that balance the curry spices.

The step that matters

Adding the lobster just before boiling. Lobster flesh toughens and turns rubbery when overcooked. Adding it off the heat and letting it sit gently warms it through while keeping it tender.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, fish, coconut, flour, butter, onion, lemon):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, fish, coconut, flour, butter, onion, 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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