Why it works: Onion and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 42,912 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓
Curried Lobster
Ingredients
Directions
Make the curry
In a pan, melt butter and fry the minced onion until soft.
Add the coarse sea salt, soup stock, and curry powder; cook gently for 5 minutes.
Stir in the lobster and heat thoroughly.
Serve
Serve with plain boiled rice.
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.
-
Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together42,912 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
-
Lobster + buttertop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,609 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
-
Lobster + oniontop 24% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together474 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
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 firms and turns opaque as it heats through.
- Curry powder
- Supplies the dominant spice aroma and flavour of the sauce.
- Soup stock
- Forms the liquid base that carries the spices and moistens the lobster.
- Minced onion
- Softens in butter to add sweetness and savoury body to the sauce.
The step that matters
Stir in the lobster and heat thoroughly. Lobster is delicate and toughens and turns rubbery when overcooked. Adding it last, over gentle heat, warms it through just until it is opaque and tender.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, butter):
- Potatofits about as well
- Onionthe original
- Mustardfits about as well
- Chivefits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, butter. 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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