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Salad

Shrimp Salad

A salad of shrimp, lettuce, capers, French dressing, mayonnaise, and ice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 372 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Shrimp Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the shrimp

  1. Turn shrimp from the can.

  2. Remove the black ligament.

  3. Dress the shrimp with French dressing.

  4. Set on ice.

Prepare the lettuce

  1. Clean and crisp the inside leaves of the lettuce.

  2. Arrange them in a salad bowl.

  3. Sprinkle the lettuce with finely chopped ice.

Assemble and finish

  1. Turn the shrimp into the center of the lettuce.

  2. Dress with mayonnaise.

  3. Sprinkle with capers.

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. Lettuce + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together372 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Shrimp + caperstop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together179 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  3. 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

Shrimp
Forms the main protein and bulk of the salad, carrying the dressing flavors.
Lettuce
Provides the crisp, cool base that contrasts with the soft shrimp.
Mayonnaise
Adds fat and creaminess, giving the dressing a rich, smooth texture.
French dressing
Adds acidity and savory flavor that seasons the shrimp.
Capers
Add a sharp, briny acidity that cuts through the richness of the mayonnaise.

The step that matters

Sprinkle the lettuce with finely chopped ice. Cold water from melting ice keeps the lettuce cells firm and crisp, so the leaves stay crunchy rather than wilting under the dressed shrimp.

Swap the lettuce

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Welsh onionfits better
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shrimp, capers. 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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