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Escalloped Shrimps

Shrimp baked in a butter, flour, mustard sauce topped with bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Escalloped Shrimps

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the sauce

  1. Dissolve the beef extract in the boiling water.

  2. In a saucepan, cream the butter until light.

  3. Add the flour and mustard, and beat until well combined.

  4. Gradually pour the hot liquid into the mixture.

  5. Place the saucepan on the heat and stir until it begins to boil.

  6. Add the lemon juice and half the salt and cayenne, and cook for 6 minutes.

Assemble and bake

  1. Season the shrimps and stir them into the sauce.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a shallow escallop dish that holds about 1 quart.

  3. Cover with grated bread crumbs and dot with small pieces of the remaining butter.

  4. Bake for 20 minutes at 400°F (200°C).

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Shrimps
Provide the main protein and bulk of the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and carries the flour so the sauce stays smooth.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a sauce that holds the shrimp together.
Bread crumbs
Form a topping that browns and crisps in the oven.
Beef extract
Adds savoury depth to the boiling water that becomes the sauce.

The step that matters

Bringing the sauce to a boil while stirring. Flour thickens only when heated, so the sauce must be stirred as it comes to a boil to prevent lumps and to fully cook the starch. Stopping early leaves the sauce thin and pasty.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shrimp, bread, beef, flour, butter, 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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