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Shrimp Wiggle

A creamy shrimp and pea dish with a flour‑butter sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Shrimp Wiggle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut shrimp into small bits and let them rest in a flat dish for 1 hour.

  2. Drain peas and dry them well.

Make and serve

  1. In a saucepan, combine cream, butter, and flour to make a sauce.

  2. Add the shrimp and peas to the sauce and heat very slowly, stirring constantly to prevent scorching.

  3. Season to taste and serve.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Peas + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,887 recipes

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

  5. Shrimp + peastop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together368 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Flour and butter 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

Shrimp
Provides the main protein and flavor of the dish.
Cream
Gives the sauce richness and a smooth, moist texture.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor to the base of the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the cream and butter into a smooth sauce.
Peas
Adds sweetness, color and soft texture to the dish.

The step that matters

Heating the shrimp and peas in the sauce. Heat must be low and stirring constant, because cream-based sauces scorch and separate easily when heated fast. Gentle heat keeps the sauce smooth and the shrimp tender rather than rubbery.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Macadamia nutfits better
  3. Peanutfits better
  4. Peasthe original

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