Name: Shrimp Sandwiches
Ingredients: ½ pint shrimps; 2 to 3 ounces butter; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper; tarragon vinegar; 203 slices of bread; butter for spreading; parsley for garnish

Why it works: Tarragon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,563 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Shrimp Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

In a mortar, combine shrimps, butter, salt, and cayenne pepper. Pound to a paste.
Moisten the paste with a few drops of tarragon vinegar.
Spread half of the bread slices with the shrimp paste.
Top with the remaining bread slices and press lightly together.
Cut the sandwiches into fingers or quarters.
Arrange on a folded napkin or decorative dish, garnish with parsley, 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.

Tarragon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,563 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Pepper + tarragontop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,399 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,547 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Swap the tarragon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shrimp, butter, pepper, vinegar, bread, parsley):

Tarragonthe original
Thymefits about as well
Garlicfits about as well
Dillfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against shrimp, butter, pepper, vinegar, bread, parsley. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.