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Potted Shrimps

A dish of shrimps preserved in clarified butter with nutmeg, mace, salt, and white pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Potted Shrimps

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Pick the shrimps and place them in a stewpan with the other ingredients.

  2. Heat gradually in the butter without boiling.

  3. Transfer to small jars and cover with clarified butter to exclude air.

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. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. White pepper + macetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. Shrimp + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,931 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. Nutmeg + white peppertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Nutmeg + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Shrimps
Provide the main body and sweet, savoury flavour of the dish.
Fresh butter
Carries the flavour and gives a rich, smooth texture as it cooks gently with the shrimps.
Nutmeg
Adds a warm, aromatic spice note.
Powdered mace
Adds a warm, aromatic spice note that complements the nutmeg.

The step that matters

Heat gradually without boiling. Gentle heat warms the shrimps through without toughening their proteins, which makes them firm and rubbery. Boiling also makes the butter separate and lose its smooth texture, so the shrimps stay tender and the dish stays silky.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shrimp, nutmeg, butter, mace):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shrimp, nutmeg, butter, mace. 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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