Name: Shrimp Sandwiches
Ingredients: potted shrimps; butter; bread

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 Sandwiches

Ingredients

potted shrimps
butter
bread

Directions

Butter the bread.
Arrange the potted shrimps on the bread.
Press the bread together and cut into neat sandwiches.

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.

Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Shrimp + buttertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,931 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Shrimp + breadtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together360 recipes

Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Potted shrimps: Provide the main savoury filling and flavour of the sandwich.
Butter: Adds richness and moisture to the bread and helps keep it from soaking up the filling.
Bread: Forms the structure that holds the filling and gives the sandwich its shape.

“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.