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Shrimp a LA Creole

A shrimp dish simmered in tomato, onion, and spices with a flour roux.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Shrimp a LA Creole

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Heat the lard in a pot over medium heat.

  2. Add the sliced onion and cook until soft.

  3. Stir in the flour and cook until browned.

  4. Add the chopped tomatoes and mix well.

  5. Pour in the boiling water and bring to a boil.

Cook the shrimp

  1. Add the shelled shrimp and season with salt, black pepper, red pepper, and parsley.

  2. Boil for about 20 minutes until the shrimp are cooked through.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Shrimp
Provides the main protein, which firms and turns opaque as it cooks in the sauce.
Flour
Browned in the fat, it thickens the liquid and adds a nutty, toasted flavor to the sauce.
Tomatoes
Add acidity, moisture and body, forming the base of the sauce as they break down.
Onion
Softened in the lard, it adds sweetness and savory aroma to the sauce base.
Lard
Carries the flavor of the aromatics and provides fat for browning the flour.

The step that matters

Browning the flour. Flour cooked in fat must brown to a deep color for flavor and thickening. Pulling it too early leaves a raw, pasty taste, while scorching it gives a bitter burnt flavor. Stir constantly over medium heat.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shrimp, tomato, flour, pepper, parsley):

  1. Okrafits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shrimp, tomato, flour, pepper, parsley. 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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