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Shrimp Bisque

A creamy soup made from shrimp, butter, flour, milk, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Shrimp Bisque

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the shrimp

  1. Combine chopped shrimp and cold water in a pot.

  2. Heat slowly to boiling and boil for 10 minutes.

  3. Drain the shrimp, reserving the liquid.

Make the bisque

  1. In the same pot, melt butter and whisk in flour to create a roux.

  2. Gradually add the reserved liquid and hot milk, stirring until thickened.

  3. Season with salt and pepper, then add the shrimp back in.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 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

Shrimp
Provides the main seafood flavor and the body of the bisque.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor, and forms the base of the roux.
Flour
Thickens the liquid when cooked with butter into a roux.
Milk
Adds creaminess and a smooth, rich texture to the soup.

The step that matters

Adding the liquid to the roux. Flour needs to be cooked in the butter and the hot liquid added gradually while stirring, so starch disperses evenly and the bisque thickens smoothly without lumps.

“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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