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Shrimp a LA Newburg

Shrimp à la Newburg is shrimp served in a sauce of butter, flour, cream, egg yolks, and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Shrimp a LA Newburg

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the shrimp

  1. If using canned shrimp, drain the can.

  2. Cook the shrimp in 1 tablespoon butter for 3 minutes.

  3. Add ½ teaspoon salt, a few grains of cayenne, and 1 teaspoon lemon juice to the shrimp.

  4. Set the shrimp aside.

Make the sauce

  1. In a separate pan, melt ½ tablespoon butter.

  2. Stir in ½ teaspoon flour.

  3. Gradually add ½ cup cream mixed with 2 egg yolks to the butter and flour mixture.

  4. Return the shrimp to the sauce.

  5. Add 2 tablespoons sherry to the sauce.

  6. Season with nutmeg if desired.

Serve

  1. Serve with toast points or pastry points.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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 (in the method)
Forms the main body of the dish and carries its seafood flavor.
Egg yolks
Thicken the cream into a smooth, rich sauce when gently heated.
Cream
Provides richness and a silky texture to the sauce.
Flour
Helps thicken the butter and cream into a stable sauce.
Sherry
Adds acidity and a warm, nutty aroma to the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the cream and egg yolk mixture. Egg yolks thicken when heated, but if the sauce gets too hot they can curdle and turn grainy. Add the mixture gradually over gentle heat and keep stirring to keep the sauce smooth.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, sauce, flour, cream, egg, sherry):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Vanillafits about as well
  4. Raisinfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, sauce, flour, cream, egg, sherry. 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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