Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Shrimp Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Boil 1 pint of fish velouté or béchamel sauce.
Add ¼ pint of heavy cream and ¼ pint of clear fish fumet, then reduce the mixture to 1 pint.
Remove from heat and stir in 2 ounces of shrimp butter and 2 ounces of shelled shrimp tails.
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.
-
Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
-
Shrimp + buttertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,931 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
-
Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,488 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
-
Fish + shrimptop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together252 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
-
Cream + shrimptop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,067 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Fish velouté or béchamel sauce
- Forms the thick base that the other liquids are combined and reduced into.
- Heavy cream
- Adds richness and body, giving the sauce a smoother, silkier texture.
- Clear fish fumet
- Adds concentrated seafood flavor as the liquid that reduces with the sauce base.
- Shrimp butter
- Adds fat and concentrated shrimp flavor when stirred in off the heat.
- Shelled shrimp tails
- Provide shrimp flavor and texture as the sauce's main garnish-like addition.
The step that matters
Reduce the mixture to 1 pint. Reducing concentrates flavor and thickens the sauce, but over-reducing can make it too thick or salty. Stop when the target volume is reached.
“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.
You might also like
Fried Fish120 recipes
Fish Croquettes81 recipes
Scalloped Cod69 recipes
Broiled Fish68 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.