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Deviled Shrimp

Deviled Shrimp is a baked shrimp dish with a butter, flour, mustard, and stock sauce topped with buttered crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Deviled Shrimp

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in the flour, mustard, cayenne, salt, and lemon juice.

  3. Gradually add the white stock or milk, stirring until smooth.

Assemble and bake

  1. Add the minced shrimp to the sauce and mix well.

  2. Grease ramekin dishes with butter and fill them with the shrimp mixture.

  3. Top with buttered crumbs.

  4. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 10 to 12 minutes.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Mustard + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,816 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Shrimp
Provides the main protein and the savory flavor of the filling.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor and helping the sauce feel smooth.
Flour
Thickens the butter and stock or milk into a smooth sauce that holds the shrimp together.
White stock or milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, giving it moisture and body.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce and balances the seasoning.

The step that matters

Stirring the sauce smooth. Adding the liquid gradually while stirring lets the flour disperse evenly and thicken the sauce without lumps. Adding it all at once can leave floury clumps that are hard to smooth out later.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shrimp, milk, butter, flour, pepper, lemon. 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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