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Shrimp Cream

A creamy shrimp soup made with stock, anchovies, onion, rice, stale bread, and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Fry the chopped shrimps in butter until cooked.

  2. Combine the shrimps with white stock, anchovies, sliced onion, boiled rice, stale bread, pepper, and salt in a pot.

  3. Cook slowly for 2 hours.

  4. Press the mixture through a sieve.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in sherry and serve hot.

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

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

  2. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

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

  5. Shrimp + ricetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,055 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-methylbutanol (malty, whiskey).

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

What each ingredient does

Shrimps
Provide the main flavor and the protein base of the soup.
Butter
Carries the frying of the shrimps and adds richness and a rounded flavor.
Boiled rice
Thickens the soup as it cooks down, giving it body after sieving.
Stale bread
Adds body and helps thicken the soup as it simmers.
Anchovies
Adds savory depth that rounds out the shellfish flavor.
Onion
Contributes aromatic sweetness and background flavor during the long simmer.

The step that matters

Cooking slowly for 2 hours. A low, slow simmer lets the rice and bread break down and release starch, thickening the soup evenly. Too high a heat can scorch the bottom of the pot and make the flavor bitter.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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