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Salad

Shrimp Salad

A salad of shrimp, celery, and a dressing of hard‑boiled egg yolks, mustard, sugar, vinegar, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Shrimp Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Hard boil the eggs.

  2. Rub the yolks through a fine sieve.

  3. In a bowl, mix the yolks with mustard, sugar, salt, and pepper.

  4. Slowly add the vinegar, then fold in the cream.

Assemble and serve

  1. In a serving dish, layer shrimp and celery alternately.

  2. Pour 3 to 4 tablespoons of dressing over each layer until all ingredients are used.

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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Their fat and emulsifying lecithin help bind the dressing into a smooth, creamy texture.
Cream
Adds richness and body, making the dressing smooth and spoonable.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and balances the richness of the yolks and cream.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that rounds out the sharpness of the vinegar and mustard.
Shrimp
Provides the main protein and savory flavor of the salad.

The step that matters

Slowly add the vinegar, then fold in the cream. Adding acid too quickly to egg yolks can cause the dressing to curdle or separate. Adding it slowly lets the yolks absorb it gradually, and folding in cream gently keeps the mixture smooth and thick.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, cream, vinegar, mustard, pepper, shrimp):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Dillfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, cream, vinegar, mustard, pepper, shrimp. 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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