Name: Creamed Shrimps
Ingredients: 1 lb cheese (Eastern cream); 2 tablespoons butter; 1 teaspoon mustard; 2 eggs; 1 cup cream; Salt to taste; Cayenne pepper to taste; 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce; ½ teaspoon baking soda

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Creamed Shrimps

Ingredients

Directions

Melt the butter in a chafing dish and stir in the flour until combined.
Add the cream and stir until smooth.
Incorporate the cheese, mustard, eggs, Worcestershire sauce, baking soda, salt, and cayenne.
Bring the mixture to a boil and serve immediately on buttered toast.

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.

Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,962 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,430 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,787 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Cheese + mustardtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,805 recipes

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

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

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cheese, cream, butter, egg, pepper, sauce):

Capsicumfits about as well
Mustardthe original
Potatofits about as well
Asparagusfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, cream, butter, egg, pepper, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.