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Shrimp Au-gratin En Coquille

Shrimp gratin baked in shells with milk, butter, flour, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Shrimp Au-gratin En Coquille

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, boil the milk with the onion and parsley, thickened with the butter and flour.

  2. Add the shrimp, sherry, salt, pepper, and Worcestershire sauce; boil for about 5 minutes.

Bake and serve

  1. Spoon the mixture into shells, cover with breadcrumbs and bits of butter.

  2. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 5 minutes.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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
Forms the main filling and provides the bulk of the dish's protein.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and helps the topping brown in the oven.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce that clings to the shrimp.
Milk
Forms the base of the creamy sauce that binds the filling.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the sauce.

The step that matters

Thickening the milk sauce. Flour and butter must be cooked with the milk and boiled so starch swells and the sauce thickens evenly. Adding flour without enough heating or stirring can leave lumps or a thin, grainy sauce.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shrimp, sauce, pepper, parsley, butter, sherry, flour):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shrimp, sauce, pepper, parsley, butter, sherry, flour. 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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