Skip to main content
Starter

Deviled Shrimps

A savoury spread of chopped shrimp seasoned with lemon, Worcestershire sauce, cayenne and celery salt, served on crackers or bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Deviled Shrimps

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Chop the shrimps finely.

  2. Beat the chopped shrimps to a paste with olive oil or melted butter.

  3. Season the mixture with lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, cayenne pepper, and celery salt.

  4. Spread the mixture between buttered and toasted saltines, small snowflake crackers, or thin slices of buttered bread.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Olive + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

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

  5. Olive + breadtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,091 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Shrimps
Form the main filling, providing the bulk and savory flavor of the spread.
Olive oil or melted butter
Adds fat and moisture, helping the chopped shrimp bind into a smooth paste.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich shrimp flavor.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds savory, fermented depth to the seasoning.

The step that matters

Beating the shrimp to a paste. Chopping and beating the shrimp fully breaks down its fibers so the filling spreads smoothly. Shrimp that is left in coarse pieces gives an uneven texture that will not spread well on the crackers.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shrimp, olive, sauce, pepper, celery, bread):

  1. Avocadofits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Limefits about as well
  4. Mangofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against shrimp, olive, sauce, pepper, celery, bread. 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.

You might also like

Deviled OystersDeviled Oysters25 recipes