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Salad

Shrimp Salad

A salad of shrimp, celery, and a mustard‑egg yolk dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Shrimp Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salad

  1. In a bowl, combine the shrimp and chopped celery.

Make the sauce

  1. In another bowl, beat the egg yolks with salt and mustard powder.

  2. Slowly add the oil, a few drops at a time, until the sauce is very stiff.

  3. Stir in cayenne pepper and lemon juice.

Serve

  1. Pour the sauce over the salad just before serving.

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. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

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

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

  5. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 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

Egg yolks
Emulsify the oil into a thick, stable sauce that holds together.
Oil
Provides fat and richness, forming the body of the stiff sauce with the yolks.
Shrimp
Supplies the main protein and savory flavor of the salad.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce and balances the oil.

The step that matters

Adding the oil slowly. Egg yolks emulsify oil only when it is added gradually, a few drops at a time. Adding it too fast breaks the sauce, so it stays runny instead of stiff and smooth.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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