Skip to main content
Main

Shrimp Salad

A salad of shrimps and green peas dressed with a vinegar, egg yolk, butter, seasoning, lemon juice, and heavy cream mixture.

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

Why it works: Peas and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,293 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Shrimp Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Heat vinegar in a saucepan until boiling.

  2. Add beaten egg yolks to the vinegar.

  3. Stir the mixture until thick.

  4. Remove the mixture from heat.

  5. Mix in butter and salad seasoning.

  6. Let the mixture cool.

  7. Add lemon juice to the mixture.

  8. Whip the cream until stiff.

  9. Fold the whipped cream into the dressing.

Assemble and serve

  1. Place shrimps and green peas in lettuce leaves.

  2. Pour the dressing over the shrimp and peas before serving.

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. Peas + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,293 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Lettuce + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,559 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

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

  5. Peas + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,005 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the dressing as they set with heat, giving it body.
Heavy cream
Whipped and folded in, it adds lightness and a creamy texture to the dressing.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that sharpens the dressing and balances the rich yolks and cream.
Butter
Adds richness and smooth mouthfeel to the dressing.

The step that matters

Stir the egg yolk mixture until thick. Egg yolks thicken when heated but can scramble if overheated or left too long on the heat. Removing the pan from heat once thick keeps the dressing smooth.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shrimp, peas, lettuce, vinegar, egg, butter, cream):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against shrimp, peas, lettuce, vinegar, egg, butter, cream. 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.

More shrimp salad recipes

Avocado 5 See all 90 →

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesGreen PeasGreen Peas229 recipesGreen Peas SoupGreen Peas Soup35 recipesCreamy Lettuce SoupCreamy Lettuce Soup8 recipes