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Stewed Shrimp

A stew of shrimp cooked with butter, tomatoes, stock, herbs, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Stewed Shrimp

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Heat the butter in a pan.

  2. Fry the shrimp in the butter until cooked.

Make the stew

  1. Add the browned flour, tomatoes, onion, salt, red pepper, stock, thyme, bay leaves, and parsley.

  2. Cook for about 1 hour.

Serve

  1. Serve the stew on toast.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  3. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  4. Thyme + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Thyme + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Shrimp
Forms the main body of the stew and provides its protein and flavor.
Butter
Fat that carries flavor and gives the shrimp a rich, browned surface when fried.
Browned flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth, lightly nutty-flavored stew.
Stock
Liquid base that becomes the body of the stew during the long simmer.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and a fresh, savory sweetness to the stew.

The step that matters

Fry the shrimp until just cooked. Shrimp turn firm and rubbery when overcooked, and they keep cooking in the hot stew afterward, so they should be removed from the heat as soon as they turn opaque.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against shrimp, thyme, butter, tomato, flour, pepper, parsley. 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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