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Prawns, Stewed

A savory stew of boiled prawns simmered in wine, water, vinegar, mace, and cayenne, thickened with flour and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Prawns, Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Bruise the shells of the prawn heads and place them in a saucepan with the white wine and water.

  2. Add the vinegar, mace, and cayenne pepper, then simmer gently for 30 minutes.

  3. Strain the liquid back into the saucepan and thicken it with flour mixed smoothly with a little butter.

  4. Boil until the sauce reaches the consistency of thick cream.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the prawn tails and heat until hot, about 3-4 minutes.

  2. Toast the slice of bread and cut it into strips.

  3. Place the bread strips on a dish, pour the stewed prawns over them, and serve hot.

  4. Garnish with parsley.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. White wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Prawns
Provide the main protein and sweet, briny flavour of the dish.
White wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the liquid as it simmers.
Flour
Thickens the strained liquid into a sauce when cooked with butter.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and helps the flour mix in smoothly without lumps.
Bread
Soaks up the sauce as a base for the stewed prawns.

The step that matters

Boil until the sauce reaches the consistency of thick cream. Flour thickens only as its starch granules swell with heat, so the sauce must boil long enough to reach a creamy body before the prawns are added.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (white wine, vinegar, pepper, flour, butter, bread, parsley):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, vinegar, pepper, flour, butter, bread, parsley. 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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