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Shrimp Salad

A chilled shrimp salad set in gelatin stock with chicken, beef, eggs, lettuce, and mayonnaise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the aspic

  1. Boil the chicken and beef to make stock.

  2. Season the stock with salt, pepper, and lemon juice.

  3. Add the gelatin to the stock and let it dissolve.

Mould and set

  1. Place the shrimp in molds and mince the hard-boiled eggs over them.

  2. Cover the shrimp and eggs with the seasoned stock and let it set.

Serve

  1. Turn the molds out onto lettuce leaves and serve with mayonnaise.

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. Chicken + beeftop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,148 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + lettucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + lettucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,559 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatin
Sets the seasoned stock into a firm jelly that holds the molded shrimp and eggs.
Shrimp
Provides the main seafood flavour and texture inside the set jelly.
Hard boiled eggs
Add richness and a soft, minced texture to the set jelly around the shrimp.
Chicken
Gives the stock its body and savoury base.
Beef
Adds depth and savoury richness to the stock.

The step that matters

Let the stock set fully before turning out. Gelatin needs to be fully dissolved and then chilled long enough to set firmly; if the jelly is not cold and firm, it will not hold its shape when unmoulded.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, beef, pepper, lemon, gelatin, shrimp, egg):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, beef, pepper, lemon, gelatin, shrimp, 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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