Skip to main content
Main

Lobster Curry

A spicy lobster stew with curry, onions, butter, and lemon, served over boiled rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Onion and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,433 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Lobster Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the curry

  1. Cut the boiled lobster into dice.

  2. Fry the minced onions in butter until soft.

  3. Stir in the curry powder and stock or water.

  4. Stew the mixture until it begins to thicken.

  5. Add the lobster meat and stew for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Finish and serve

  1. Just before serving, add the lemon juice, salt, and cayenne.

  2. Serve with a wall of boiled rice around the edge and the lobster in the middle.

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. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Lemon + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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, which becomes tender as it simmers in the sauce.
Onions
Softened in butter, they add sweetness and body to the curry base.
Butter
Carries the curry powder's flavour and adds richness to the onions.
Curry powder
Supplies the spiced aroma and colour that define the dish.
Stock or water
Forms the liquid that lets the mixture stew and gradually thicken.

The step that matters

Adding the lobster meat. The lobster is already cooked, so prolonged stewing can make it tough and rubbery. Keeping the stew gentle and the timing as given helps the meat stay tender while it absorbs the sauce.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, onion, butter, rice):

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Avocadofits about as well
  3. Grapefits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, onion, butter, 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.

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesLobster SauceLobster Sauce174 recipesLobster CroquettesLobster Croquettes99 recipesRice FrittersRice Fritters84 recipes