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Boiled Eivek Shrimp

Boiled shrimp seasoned with salt, pepper, bay leaves, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon 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 ↓

Boiled Eivek Shrimp

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the shrimp

  1. Combine salt, pepper, bay leaves, and lemon in water.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Add shrimp and cook for about 10 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Drain the shrimp and let them cool.

  2. Serve on a platter covered with cracked ice.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Shrimp + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Shrimp + peppertop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,692 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylethanol (rose, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Shrimp
The main ingredient, which turns firm and opaque as it cooks in the seasoned water.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the cooking water so the shrimp absorb flavor as they cook.
Pepper pods
Adds a warm, aromatic spice to the cooking liquid.
Bay leaves
Contributes a subtle herbal aroma to the cooking liquid.
Lemon
Adds acidity and bright citrus aroma to the seasoned water.

The step that matters

Cook the shrimp for about 10 minutes. Shrimp turn tough and rubbery when overcooked, because their muscle proteins tighten under prolonged heat. Watch for the flesh to turn opaque and firm, then drain promptly so residual heat does not keep cooking them.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against shrimp, pepper. 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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