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Shrimp Cream

A creamy shrimp soup made with stock, anchovies, onion, rice, stale bread, and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Shrimp Cream

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Fry the chopped shrimps in butter until cooked.

  2. Combine the shrimps with white stock, anchovies, onion, boiled rice, stale bread, pepper, and salt in a pot.

  3. Cook slowly for 2 hours.

  4. Press the mixture through a sieve.

  5. Stir in sherry and serve hot.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Shrimp + ricetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,055 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-methylbutanol (malty, whiskey).

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, and their shells add savoury depth to the stock.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour when the shrimps are fried.
White stock
Forms the liquid base that the solids simmer in and become a soup.
Boiled rice
Thickens the soup as it cooks and softens, giving body when pressed through a sieve.
Stale bread
Absorbs liquid and helps thicken the soup, adding body to the purée.
Anchovies
Add a deep savoury note that rounds out the shrimp flavour.

The step that matters

Cook slowly for 2 hours. A gentle, long simmer lets the starches from the rice and bread break down fully and the flavours extract into the stock. Boiling hard can scorch the bottom of the pot and make the soup taste harsh.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shrimp, butter, rice, bread, pepper, sherry):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against shrimp, butter, rice, bread, pepper, sherry. 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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