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Easy Shrimp and Grits

A Southern staple, shrimp and grits is surprisingly simple for even beginning cooks. This recipe has cheesy grits and Sriracha sauce for a little kick.

By tastykitchen · From Open Recipes · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and shrimp match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and 2,733 recipes mention both. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 4
Prep10 min
Cook30 min

Ingredients

Contains: milk, shellfish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Step-by-step directions aren't available for this recipe. See the full recipe at the source →

By tastykitchen. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Butter + shrimptop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,733 recipes

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

  2. Cheddar cheese + parmesan cheesetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together592 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  3. Pepper + clovetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together13,144 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Butter + cheddar cheesetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,434 recipes

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

  5. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together4,158 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, butter, cheddar cheese, parmesan cheese, pepper, shrimp, onion):

  1. Garlicbetter flavor fit
  2. Celerybetter flavor fit
  3. Parsleybetter flavor fit
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, butter, cheddar cheese, parmesan cheese, pepper, shrimp, onion. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).