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Shrimp Canapees

Shrimp canapees are stale bread rounds topped with shrimp butter and shrimp, garnished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Shrimp Canapees

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut stale bread into rounds using a 2-inch cutter.

  2. Fry the rounds in butter until lightly browned.

  3. Let the rounds cool.

Assemble and serve

  1. Spread a little shrimp butter on each round.

  2. Top with picked shrimps and arrange in a circle on a dish.

  3. Garnish with parsley in the center and serve.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + shrimptop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,931 recipes

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

  3. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

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

  4. Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Bread + shrimptop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together360 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Stale bread
Forms the sturdy base that holds the topping without going soggy.
Butter
Fries the rounds to a golden, lightly browned crust with rich flavor.
Shrimp butter
Adds savory shrimp flavor and a creamy layer that moistens the toast.
Picked shrimps
Provides the main flavor and tender, sweet seafood topping.

The step that matters

Frying the rounds until lightly browned. Frying in butter browns the bread through the Maillard reaction, creating flavor and a crisp surface. Over-browning turns bitter, and under-frying leaves the base soft and likely to soften under the spread.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Nutmegfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, shrimp. 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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