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Sauce

Shrimp Sauce

A sauce made from velouté, shrimp spawn, water, anchovy sauce, lemon juice, roux, butter, and shrimp.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and anchovy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Shrimp Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine the veloute sauce and live shrimp spawn rubbed through a sieve.

  2. Add water, anchovy sauce, and lemon juice; bring to a boil.

  3. If the sauce is not thick enough, mix in a little roux.

  4. Boil for a couple of minutes, then strain through a pointed tin strainer.

  5. Stir in a pat of butter.

Finish and serve

  1. Wash and dry the picked shrimps, ensuring no shell pieces remain.

  2. Add the shrimps to the sauce and keep warm in a bain-marie.

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. Sauce + anchovytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Shrimp + anchovytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together440 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

  3. Shrimp + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,931 recipes

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

  4. Anchovy + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Veloute sauce
Forms the thick base that the rest of the sauce is built on.
Live shrimp spawn
Adds the characteristic shrimp flavour and colour to the sauce.
Roux
Thickens the sauce if it is not thick enough after boiling.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, glossy finish to the sauce.
Picked shrimps
Provide the shrimp pieces that are served in the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Adding roux only if needed. Roux thickens quickly and can make the sauce pasty if added in too large an amount. Add a little, boil, and check the consistency before adding more.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, shrimp, anchovy, butter):

  1. Avocadofits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Coconutfits less well
  4. Limefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, shrimp, anchovy, 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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