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Prawn Salad

A salad of prawns, celery, mushrooms, parsley, and fried eggs, served with mayonnaise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Olive and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,539 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Prawn Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the prawns

  1. Drain the prawns and toss them in a little hot olive oil for a moment.

  2. Remove the prawns and add parsley, mushrooms, hot water, salt, pepper, and flour to thicken.

Assemble and serve

  1. Place the prawns on a dish and pour the sauce over them.

  2. Garnish with fried eggs and slices of fried tomatoes.

  3. In a bowl, combine the celery and prawns, garnish neatly, and serve with mayonnaise.

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. Olive + tomatotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,539 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

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

  3. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  4. Celery + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  5. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Prawns
Provide the main protein, cooked briefly in hot oil so they stay tender.
Celery
Adds crisp texture and fresh, mild flavor to the salad.
Flour
Thickens the sauce so it clings to the prawns rather than running off.
Mayonnaise
Adds fat and creaminess, giving the salad richness and moisture.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce with flour. Flour must be cooked into the hot liquid and mushrooms so it dissolves fully; if added raw or left clumped, the sauce turns lumpy and does not thicken evenly.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, olive, parsley, mushroom, pepper, flour, egg):

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, olive, parsley, mushroom, pepper, flour, 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.

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