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Shrimp Soup

A soup made with shrimps, butter, flour, fish stock, shrimp liquor, anchovy, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Fish and anchovy work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 637 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Shrimp Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the shrimp liquor

  1. Remove heads and shells from the shrimps.

  2. Put the shrimps into a saucepan.

  3. Cover with water.

  4. Boil for 5 minutes.

  5. Strain.

Make the soup

  1. Heat the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the flour.

  3. Add the fish stock, shrimp liquor, and anchovy.

  4. Boil for 3 minutes.

  5. Add the shrimps.

  6. Add chopped parsley.

  7. Serve.

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. Fish + anchovytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together637 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Shrimp + anchovytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together440 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

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

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

  4. Butter + fishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  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

Shrimps
Provide the main flavour and protein of the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour through the soup.
Flour
Thickens the butter and stock mixture so the soup has body.
Fish stock
Forms the liquid base of the soup.
Anchovy
Adds savoury depth and saltiness that enhances the seafood flavour.

The step that matters

Adding the flour to the hot butter. Flour must be cooked briefly in the fat before liquid is added. Stirring it in as a smooth paste prevents lumps and removes the raw starch taste, so the thickened soup stays smooth.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shrimp, butter, flour, fish, anchovy):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Garlicfits about as well
  4. Nutmegfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against shrimp, butter, flour, fish, anchovy. 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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