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Deviled Shrimps

A creamy shrimp mixture seasoned with mustard, cayenne, and onion juice, baked with breadcrumbs and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Deviled Shrimps

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Make a brown roux by melting the butter and stirring in the browned flour until smooth.

  2. Add the stock and stir for one minute.

  3. Mix in the minced shrimps, powdered egg yolks, mustard, cayenne, onion juice, and salt.

  4. Stir over heat until the mixture is smoking hot.

Bake and serve

  1. Fill shells or pate pans with the mixture.

  2. Top with fine bread crumbs and dot with butter.

  3. Brown quickly in the oven and serve with sliced lemon.

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. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Enriches the roux and adds richness and flavor to the filling.
Browned flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth, savory sauce that binds the filling.
Minced shrimps
Provides the main seafood body and flavor of the filling.
Powdered egg yolks
Adds richness and helps thicken the filling as it heats.

The step that matters

Stir over heat until the mixture is smoking hot. The filling must be heated thoroughly so the roux-thickened mixture cooks through and the shrimp is fully cooked before baking. Stirring prevents scorching on the bottom of the pan and keeps the sauce smooth.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, shrimp, egg, mustard, pepper, bread. 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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