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Shrimp for Sauces

A pickled shrimp dish preserved in vinegar with cloves and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Shrimp for Sauces

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine the shrimps, vinegar, salt, cloves, and Cayenne pepper in a bowl.

  2. Transfer the mixture into bottles, ensuring the shrimps are submerged in the liquid.

Cook

  1. Cork the bottles tightly and place them in a pot of cold water.

  2. Boil gently for 30 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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Vinegar + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Shrimp + peppertop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,692 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylethanol (rose, floral).

  5. Shrimp + vinegartop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together862 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
Main ingredient; it turns firm and opaque as it heats in the brine.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps preserve the shrimp.
Cloves
Adds warm, aromatic spice to the brine.
Cayenne pepper
Adds sharp heat to the brine.

The step that matters

Keep the shrimp submerged in the liquid. Shrimp left above the brine can dry out and pickle unevenly, so the liquid must cover them fully before the bottles are sealed and heated.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shrimp, vinegar, pepper):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shrimp, vinegar, pepper. 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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