Why it works: Butter and shrimp are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,931 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓
Shrimp Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Make the base
Prepare ½ cup of melted butter.
Add 3 tablespoons of essence of shrimps to the melted butter, omitting salt.
Combine ½ pint of picked shrimps and serve in a boat.
Alternative method
For an alternative, pound ½ pint of shrimps in a mortar and boil in ½ pint of water for 10 minutes.
Strain the liquid through a fine sieve into a saucepan.
Thicken and finish
Mix 2 tablespoons of butter with 1 teaspoon of flour and add to the strained liquid.
Stir over heat until just about to boil; add more water if too thick.
Season with ¼ teaspoon of cayenne pepper and 1 teaspoon of essence of anchovies if desired.
Serve very hot, optionally garnished with a few picked shrimps.
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.
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Butter + shrimptop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,931 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Walnut + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,873 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Walnut + peppertop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,039 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Butter + walnuttop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,832 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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 shrimp flavour across the palate.
- Flour
- Thickens the butter and liquid into a smooth, light-bodied sauce as it heats.
- Shrimps
- Provide the main shellfish flavour, released into the water and strained into the sauce.
- Essence of anchovies
- Adds a salty, savoury depth to the sauce.
The step that matters
Stirring over heat until just about to boil. Flour thickens the sauce as it heats, so it must be stirred constantly to prevent lumps. Letting it reach a hard boil can cause the butter to separate and the sauce to thin or turn greasy.
Swap the walnut
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, shrimp, flour, pepper):
- Almondfits better
- Beansfits better
- Sesamefits better
- Walnutthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, shrimp, flour, pepper. 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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