Skip to main content
Main

Shrimp in Beer Sauce

Shrimp simmered in beer with onion, lemon, bay leaf, parsley, tomato paste, sage, and Tabasco, served over rice.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Shrimp and beer share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and 58 recipes mention both. Both carry methyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

The recipe

Time5 minutes

Ingredients

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

Directions

Poach the shrimp

  1. Combine shrimp, beer, onion, lemon, bay leaf, and parsley; bring to a boil.

  2. Lower heat and cook for 5 minutes or until shrimp turn pink.

  3. Allow to cool in cooking liquid.

  4. Drain and reserve 1 cup of liquid.

Make the sauce

  1. In a skillet, sauté garlic in hot oil until lightly browned.

  2. Combine tomato paste, sage, and Tabasco with 1 cup of reserved liquid and garlic in skillet.

  3. Stir shrimp into sauce and heat.

  4. Serve over rice.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Shrimp + beertop 10% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together58 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together14,036 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together29,030 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Lemon + sagetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together887 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + sagetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,445 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Shrimp
Forms the main protein, turning pink and firm when cooked through.
Beer
Adds liquid and malty flavour to the poaching liquid that becomes the sauce base.
Tomato paste
Concentrates body and savoury sweetness into the sauce.
Garlic
Browns lightly in hot oil to add aroma to the sauce.
Vegetable oil
Carries the garlic's flavour and helps it brown evenly in the skillet.

The step that matters

Lower heat and cook the shrimp for 5 minutes. Shrimp turn firm and rubbery when overcooked. Cooking only until they turn pink keeps them tender, since they cook further when heated again in the sauce.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shrimp, beer, lemon, parsley, garlic, tomato, sage):

  1. Potatobetter flavor fit
  2. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  3. Carrotbetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shrimp, beer, lemon, parsley, garlic, tomato, sage. 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).

“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.

You might also like

Illustration of Tomato SoupIllustrationTomato Soup526 recipesIllustration of Lemon SauceIllustrationLemon Sauce236 recipesIllustration of Cream of Tomato SoupIllustrationCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesIllustration of Tomato BisqueIllustrationTomato Bisque61 recipes