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Curried Lobster

A lobster dish simmered with curry, wine, and oyster liquor, served over rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and white wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,083 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Curried Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rice

  1. Soak the rice for three hours.

  2. Salt the soaked rice.

  3. Cook the rice in boiling water until tender, shaking occasionally.

  4. Drain the rice.

  5. Set the drained rice aside to dry.

Make the lobster curry

  1. Heat the butter and oyster liquor together.

  2. Season the mixture with curry powder and a pinch of grated lemon peel.

  3. Cut the lobster into half-inch pieces.

  4. Add the lobster to the mixture.

  5. Toss the lobster pieces until heated through.

  6. Stir in the white wine.

Serve

  1. Serve the mixture on a heated dish.

  2. Place a spoonful of rice on each plate.

  3. Top the rice with a spoonful of lobster.

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. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. White wine + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

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

  4. Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Meat + ricetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,481 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Lobster
Forms the main body of the dish, providing protein and a delicate, sweet meat.
Butter
Carries the curry flavour and adds richness to the sauce.
Oyster liquor
Adds savoury, briny depth to the sauce.
White wine
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and seafood flavours.
Curry powder
Provides the warm, aromatic spice that defines the dish.
Raw rice
Forms the starchy base that soaks up the sauce and absorbs moisture as it cooks.

The step that matters

Toss the lobster until heated through. Lobster meat is delicate and turns rubbery and dry when overcooked, so it should be warmed gently just until hot.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, butter, oyster, white wine, rice):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, butter, oyster, white wine, 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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