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Cocktail Kebabs

Shrimp kebabs marinated with lemon, garlic, mustard, horseradish, and olive oil.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Cocktail Kebabs

Timeat least 2 hours

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove heads and body shells from shrimp but leave on tail shells.

  2. Devein shrimp by removing the black spinal cord.

  3. Cut each green onion into four daisies.

  4. Put shrimp, green onions, bell pepper, and olives in a bowl.

Marinate

  1. Mix garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, sugar, mustard, and horseradish.

  2. Pour the mixture over the shrimp mixture, cover, and marinate for at least 2 hours, stirring occasionally.

  3. (Variation) Add small slices of avocado to the shrimp mixture.

Assemble and serve

  1. Remove the ingredients from the marinate and thread them evenly onto eight wooden picks.

  2. Drain the kebabs on paper towels.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

372Calories
27 gProtein
15 gFat
35 gCarbs

Counts 10 of 11 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 10 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Olive Oil1 tbsp (14g)119
Shrimp100g cooked99
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Bell Pepper1 medium (119g)31
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Clove1 tsp ground (2g)7
Olive1 large (4g)4
Garlic1 clove (3g)4
Mustard1 tsp (5g) yellow3
Horseradishnot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Olive + garlictop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,665 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Olive + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Shrimp
Main protein; already cooked, so it mainly takes on flavor from the marinade.
Lemon juice
Acidity that brightens the flavor and seasons the shrimp through the marinade.
Olive oil
Fat that carries the garlic and mustard flavors and adds richness.
Sugar
Sweetness that balances the sharpness of the lemon juice and mustard.
Coarsely ground mustard
Sharp, pungent flavor that gives the marinade its bite.

The step that matters

Timing the marinade. Cooked shrimp is already set, but the acid in lemon juice keeps acting on its surface. Marinating much longer than needed can make the shrimp mealy or tough, so check the timing closely.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shrimp, onion, pepper, olive, garlic, lemon, sugar):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Corianderfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shrimp, onion, pepper, olive, garlic, lemon, sugar. 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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