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Creamed Shrimps

A buttery tomato sauce with shrimp served over toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Creamed Shrimps

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a pan and fry the onion until brown.

  2. Strain out the onion and add the flour to the butter; cook until brown.

  3. Heat the strained tomatoes and stir in the baking soda.

  4. Add the tomato mixture to the browned flour and bring to a boil.

  5. Stir in the salt, pepper, cayenne, beaten egg yolks, cream, cooking sherry, and broken shrimps.

Serve

  1. When boiling hot, pour the mixture over slices of toast.

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. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Flour
Thickens the butter and tomato mixture into a creamy sauce.
Egg yolks
Enrich the sauce and help it thicken gently when heated.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, mellow texture to the sauce.
Baking soda
Reduces the acidity of the strained tomatoes, mellowing their sharp flavour.
Shrimps
Provide the main seafood flavour and tender texture in the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if they meet very hot liquid too quickly. Stir them in gradually or off the heat, keeping the sauce hot but not boiling hard, so it thickens smoothly.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, flour, pepper, egg, cream, 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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