Why it works: Rice and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,366 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓
Prawns Curried
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the sauce
Prepare the curry sauce as directed or use tinned curry sauce.
Heat and serve
Heat the prawns in the sauce until thoroughly hot.
Add lemon juice to taste.
Serve the prawns in a border of rice or serve the rice separately.
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.
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Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,366 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
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Sauce + ricetop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,396 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Sauce + lemontop 30% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together6,598 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Prawns
- Provide the main protein, whose texture turns firm and tough if overheated.
- Curry sauce
- Carries the spice flavour and keeps the prawns moist while they heat.
- Well-boiled rice
- Forms the serving base and soaks up the sauce.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens and balances the rich, spiced sauce.
The step that matters
Heat the prawns in the sauce until thoroughly hot. Prawns cook quickly and become rubbery when overheated, so warm them gently in the sauce just until piping hot rather than boiling them.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, rice):
- Coconutfits better
- Avocadofits better
- Limefits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, rice. 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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