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Shrimp Wiggle

A creamy sauce of shrimp, peas, and paprika served over a dish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Shrimp Wiggle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Break shrimp into small pieces.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt butter in a chafing dish.

  2. Mix flour well with melted butter.

  3. Gradually pour in milk while stirring.

  4. Once the sauce thickens, add shrimp, peas, and seasoning.

  5. Bring to a boil and serve.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Peas + milktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,309 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

Butter and flour 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
Provides the main protein and savory seafood flavor in the sauce.
Peas
Add sweetness, color, and a tender texture to the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor when melted into the sauce base.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce when cooked with the butter.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which thickens as it heats.

The step that matters

Mix flour well with melted butter. Flour lumps form if it is not fully blended into the fat before liquid is added. Whisking it smooth first lets the starch disperse evenly so the milk thickens into a uniform sauce.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Peanutfits better
  3. Beansfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shrimp, milk, butter, flour. 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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