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Salad

Shrimp Salad

A chilled salad of shrimp, cucumber, endive, and lettuce dressed with French dressing and mayonnaise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Endive and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 284 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Shrimp Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Break the shrimps into halves.

  2. Peel, quarter, and dice the cucumber, removing the seeds.

  3. Mix the shrimps and cucumber, then marinate with French dressing.

  4. Chill the mixture on ice until cold.

Assemble and serve

  1. Wash and chill the white part of the endive in ice water.

  2. When ready to serve, create a border with the endive.

  3. Drain the shrimp and cucumber mixture and place it in the center.

  4. Dress with mayonnaise and serve in tomato shells on lettuce leaves.

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. Endive + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together284 recipes

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

  2. Cucumber + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,409 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Cucumber + endivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together87 recipes

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

  4. Shrimp + lettucetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together430 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Shrimp + cucumbertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together386 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Shrimps
Provide the main protein and bulk of the salad.
Cucumber
Adds crisp texture and moisture, with seeds removed to limit excess water.
French dressing
Seasons the shrimp and cucumber through marinating, adding acidity and flavor.
Endive
Adds crisp, slightly bitter contrast and forms the decorative border.
Mayonnaise
Adds richness and creaminess to bind the salad and add fat.

The step that matters

Chill the mixture on ice until cold. Shrimp and cucumber hold their firm texture when kept cold. Warm shrimp turns rubbery and soft, and cucumber releases more water as it warms, which thins the dressing and dilutes the salad.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shrimp, endive, lettuce):

  1. Beetrootfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shrimp, endive, lettuce. 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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