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Shrimp Pie

A pie filled with shrimp, anchovies, cloves, wine, and hard‑boiled egg slices, topped with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and white wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,083 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Shrimp Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

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

  2. Line a dish with the thin pie crust.

  3. Add a slice of butter to the crust.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill the crust with picked shrimps, ground cloves, chopped anchovies, white wine, and slices of hard-boiled eggs.

  2. Top with more butter and cover with a lid of crust.

  3. Bake for 20 minutes.

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 + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Butter + shrimptop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,931 recipes

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

  3. Clove + white winetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,715 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Shrimp + white winetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together872 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Picked shrimps
Provide the main filling and savory flavor of the pie.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add firm, rich texture and body to the filling.
Anchovies
Add a salty, savory depth to the filling.
White wine
Adds acidity and moisture to the filling.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the crust brown during baking.

The step that matters

Covering the filling with the top crust. The lid must seal well around the edges so the filling steams gently rather than leaking and drying out during baking.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, shrimp, white wine, egg):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, shrimp, white wine, 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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