Skip to main content
Salad

Shrimp Salad

A chilled salad of shrimp, celery, kidney beans, lettuce, and mayonnaise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Celery and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,033 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Shrimp Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the shrimp

  1. Rinse the shrimps in cold water.

  2. Cut the shrimps into small pieces.

  3. Soak the shrimps in weak vinegar for 2 hours.

  4. Drain the shrimps and add chopped celery.

Assemble and serve

  1. Place a large spoonful of the mixture in a crisp lettuce leaf.

  2. Arrange a row of kidney beans around the shrimp mixture.

  3. Serve very cold with a spoonful of 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. Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Vinegar + lettucetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Kidney beans + vinegartop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together180 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  4. Kidney beans + celerytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together220 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  5. Shrimp + lettucetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together430 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Shrimps
Provide the main protein and the bulk of the salad.
Celery
Adds crisp texture that contrasts with the soft shrimp.
Mayonnaise
Adds fat and richness, giving the salad a creamy moisture.
French kidney beans
Add firm texture and body alongside the shrimp.

The step that matters

Soaking the shrimps in weak vinegar. Vinegar acts on the surface proteins of the shrimp and changes their texture and flavour. Soaking too long can make the shrimp firm, rubbery, or sharply sour, so timing matters.

Swap the kidney beans

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

  1. Sesamefits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Lentilsfits better
  4. Kidney beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shrimp, celery, vinegar, lettuce. 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.

More shrimp salad recipes

Avocado 5 See all 90 →

You might also like

Chicken SaladChicken Salad623 recipesSalad DressingSalad Dressing491 recipesTomato SaladTomato Salad179 recipesCold SlawCold Slaw160 recipes