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Salad

Shrimp Salad

A salad of chopped shrimp, lettuce, celery, capers, parsley, salt, paprika, and special dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 372 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Shrimp Salad

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, combine the chopped shrimps, lettuce, celery, capers, parsley, salt, and paprika.

  2. Just before serving, add the special salad dressing and mix well.

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. Lettuce + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together372 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Capers + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,550 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Lettuce + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Lettuce + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,483 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Shrimps
Provide the main protein and substance of the salad.
Lettuce
Adds crisp texture and bulk to the salad.
Celery
Adds crunch and freshness to the salad.
Special salad dressing
Adds moisture and flavour, coating the other ingredients.

The step that matters

Add the dressing just before serving. Dressing added too early draws water out of the lettuce and celery, so they wilt and turn soggy. Adding it at the last moment keeps the vegetables crisp.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shrimp, lettuce, capers, parsley):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Fennelfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shrimp, lettuce, capers, parsley. 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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