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Salad

Shrimp Salad

A salad of shrimp, celery, lettuce, and a creamy lemon‑olive oil dressing.

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

Prepare

  1. Wash the lettuce in salt water and dry thoroughly before cutting.

  2. In a bowl, combine the shrimp, celery, lettuce, and pepper.

Make the dressing

  1. In another bowl, beat the egg yolks with the salt until smooth.

  2. Slowly add the olive oil, a few drops at a time, blending well after each addition.

  3. Dilute the mixture with lemon juice until it reaches the consistency of thick cream.

Combine and serve

  1. Mix the dressing with the shrimp and vegetable mixture.

  2. Garnish with sliced lemon and hard boiled eggs.

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. Celery + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Lettuce + olivetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,580 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsify the oil and lemon juice into a stable, creamy dressing.
Olive oil
Adds richness and fat, giving the dressing its body and smooth mouthfeel.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and thins it to a creamy consistency.
Shrimp
Main protein, providing the substance and flavor of the salad.
Celery
Adds crisp texture and a fresh, mildly savory crunch.

The step that matters

Adding the olive oil slowly. Oil must be added a few drops at a time while beating, so the yolk can emulsify it. Adding it too fast breaks the mixture into separated oil and curdled yolk.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shrimp, celery, pepper, egg, olive, lemon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against shrimp, celery, pepper, egg, olive, lemon. 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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