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Shrimp Patties

Shrimp patties made with puff pastry, shrimp, arrowroot, egg yolk, butter, and seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Shrimp Patties

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Boil the shrimp gently for 15 minutes.

  2. Strain the liquid and thicken it with arrowroot.

  3. Add the egg yolk, salt, pepper, and butter; stir over low heat until creamy.

  4. Add the shrimp bodies to heat through and set aside.

Assemble and bake

  1. Roll out the puff pastry and line patty pans.

  2. Place a small piece of soft bread in the center of each pastry.

  3. Fill with the shrimp mixture, cover with pastry, and brush with egg wash.

  4. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until golden brown.

  5. Remove the bread and replace it with the shrimp mixture.

  6. Return to the oven to heat through before serving.

  7. Garnish with parsley and large shrimps.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Arrowroot + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together137 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  4. Butter + shrimptop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,931 recipes

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

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Arrowroot
Thickens the strained shrimp liquid into a smooth, creamy filling.
Egg yolk
Enriches and thickens the filling, giving it a creamy, set texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, softening the flavour of the filling.
Puff pastry
Forms the flaky, layered case that puffs and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg yolk into the thickened liquid over low heat. Egg yolk can scramble if the heat is too high. Gentle low heat lets it thicken the mixture smoothly into a creamy filling.

Swap the arrowroot

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Arrowrootthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, butter, bread, parsley, shrimp. 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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