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Deviled Shrimp

Deviled Shrimp is a baked shrimp dish topped with buttered crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Deviled Shrimp

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in the flour, mustard, salt, and lemon juice until smooth.

  3. Gradually add the white stock or milk, stirring continuously.

  4. Once the sauce is smooth, add the minced shrimp.

Bake and serve

  1. Spoon the mixture into buttered ramekins or shell dishes.

  2. Top with buttered crumbs.

  3. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 10 to 12 minutes.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Mustard + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,816 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mustard + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 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 and helps the crumbs brown on top.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a smooth, creamy sauce that holds the shrimp.
White stock or milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, giving it moisture and body.
Shrimp
Provides the main protein, cooking through in the hot sauce and oven.
Mustard
Adds sharp, savoury flavour that balances the richness of the sauce.

The step that matters

Stir the sauce smooth before adding the shrimp. Flour must be fully dispersed in the butter and liquid, and the sauce smooth, or it will turn lumpy and grainy. Adding the liquid gradually while stirring prevents lumps from forming in the thickened base.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Mustardthe original

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