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Shrimp Spanish

A baked shrimp dish with a creamy ketchup and flour sauce, served in ramekins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Shrimp Spanish

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a pan, heat the butter over medium heat.

  3. Add the flour and stir until combined.

  4. Gradually add the ketchup, cream, soup stock, and egg yolks, stirring until smooth.

  5. Season with salt, cayenne, and grated onion.

  6. Add the shrimp and mix well.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into ramekins.

  2. Top with cracker crumbs and a little melted butter.

  3. Bake for 6 minutes and serve immediately.

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

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

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

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Ketchup + creamtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together279 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Flour + ketchuptop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Shrimp
Forms the main body of the dish and provides the seafood flavor and bite.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they set and add richness to the custard-like mixture.
Flour
Thickens the butter and liquid mixture so it holds together in the ramekins.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the flour cook into the base of the sauce.
Soup stock
Supplies the liquid that the flour and egg yolks thicken into a sauce.

The step that matters

Bake for 6 minutes and serve immediately. Egg yolks set quickly with heat, so overbaking can make the mixture grainy or rubbery. Timing the bake and serving right away keeps it smooth and tender.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shrimp, flour, butter, ketchup, cream, egg):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shrimp, flour, butter, ketchup, cream, egg. 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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