Name: Shrimp a LA Newburg
Ingredients: 1 large can shrimps, washed and picked up; 1 pint milk; Coarse sea salt, to taste; Paprika, to taste; ⅓ cup sherry wine; Butter, for greasing; Bread crumbs, for topping; Watercress, for serving

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Shrimp a LA Newburg

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the sauce

Make a rich thickened cream sauce by heating the milk and seasoning with salt and paprika.
Once cooked, add the shrimps and sherry wine to the sauce.

Bake and serve

Transfer the mixture into buttered fish shells.
Cover with browned buttered crumbs and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 10 minutes.
Place the shells on sprigs of watercress and serve immediately.

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.

Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Shrimp + buttertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,931 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,645 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Shrimps: Provide the main protein and seafood flavour at the centre of the dish.
Milk: Forms the base of the cream sauce, giving it body and a smooth texture.
Sherry wine: Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the creamy sauce.
Bread crumbs: Form a crisp, browned topping when baked over the sauce.

The step that matters

Cover with browned buttered crumbs and bake. The topping needs to brown in a hot oven within a short time. Baking only briefly keeps the shrimp tender and prevents the sauce from drying out or turning rubbery.

“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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Shrimp a LA Newburg