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Shrimp Wiggle

A buttery sauce of beef extract, milk, paprika, and salt served with shrimp and peas.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 Wiggle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. If using canned shrimps and peas, drain well and let stand for an hour before using.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. In a chafing dish, mix and heat the beef extract, butter, milk, salt, and paprika.

  2. Once well heated, add the shrimps and peas, heat through, and serve immediately.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  3. Beef + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  4. Beef + peastop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,044 recipes

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

  5. Milk + peastop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,309 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Enriches the sauce with fat, giving it richness and a smooth, silky texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding moisture and a creamy body.
Shrimps
Provide the main protein, becoming tender and opaque when heated through.
Peas
Add sweetness, color and a tender bite to the finished dish.
Beef extract
Adds concentrated savory, meaty flavor to the sauce.

The step that matters

Once well heated, add the shrimps and peas, heat through, and serve immediately.. Shrimp cook quickly and turn rubbery if overheated, so they should be added to the hot sauce only long enough to warm through.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Peanutfits better
  2. Sesamefits about as well
  3. Beansfits about as well
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, milk, butter, shrimp. 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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