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Shrimp and Asparagus Sauce

A buttery sauce with shrimp, asparagus, nutmeg, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Shrimp and Asparagus Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the asparagus into short pieces.

  2. Boil the asparagus in weak broth until tender.

  3. Boil the shrimps and remove the meat from the shells.

  4. Pound the shells.

Make the sauce

  1. Heat the shells with 2 tablespoons of butter for a few minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve.

  3. Add 1 tablespoon of flour to the shrimp-butter.

  4. Thin the mixture with the asparagus cooking liquid.

  5. Heat the mixture with a pinch of grated nutmeg and salt.

  6. Once it boils, add the shrimps and asparagus.

  7. Bring the sauce to a boil again 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. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Asparagus + nutmegtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together252 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  4. Asparagus + shrimptop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together134 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  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

Butter
Enriches the sauce with fat and carries the flavour of the shells.
Flour
Thickens the butter and shrimp mixture into a smooth sauce.
Asparagus
Provides the main vegetable body and fresh, green flavour in the sauce.
Shrimps
Supply the main seafood flavour and tender meat for the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the flour to the shrimp-butter. Flour must be cooked into the fat before liquid is added, otherwise it stays raw-tasting and forms lumps instead of a smooth, thickened sauce.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Garlicfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against asparagus, shrimp, butter, flour. 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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