Name: Shrimp Pillau
Ingredients: 1 quart of rice; 1 heaping tablespoon of butter; 1 pint of milk; mace to taste; pepper to taste; coarse sea salt to taste; 2 plates of pickled shrimp; 1 egg yolk

Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Shrimp Pillau

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the rice

Boil the rice until grainy.
While hot, add butter, milk, mace, pepper, and salt to the rice.

Layer and bake

In a baking dish, layer the rice and shrimp alternately, starting and ending with rice.
Beat the egg yolk and spread it over the top layer of rice.
Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until heated through.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,374 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Butter + shrimptop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,931 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Rice + shrimptop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,055 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-methylbutanol (malty, whiskey).
Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,379 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice: Forms the bulk of the dish and absorbs the butter and milk as it sits.
Butter: Adds richness and fat that softens the grains and carries flavor.
Milk: Moistens the rice and adds creaminess as it is absorbed during baking.
Pickled shrimp: Provides the main flavor and texture contrast between the rice layers.
Egg yolk: Sets during baking to form a golden, enriched top layer.

Swap the mace

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

Nutmegfits better
Cinnamonfits better
Parsleyfits better
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, butter, milk, pepper, shrimp, egg. 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.