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Shrimp Pie, Excellent

A savory pie with shrimp, anchovies, mace, cloves, butter, wine, and pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and clove are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,400 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Shrimp Pie, Excellent

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. If the shrimps are very salty, season them with mace and 2 cloves.

  2. Mince the anchovies and mix them with the spices, then season the shrimps.

Assemble and bake

  1. Grease the bottom of a dish with butter and layer the shrimps on top.

  2. Pour ⅓ cup of sharp white wine over the shrimps.

  3. Cover with a light and thin pastry.

  4. Bake until done, as they do not take long to cook.

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. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  4. Clove + white winetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,715 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Mace + white winetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,329 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

What each ingredient does

Shrimps
Form the main body of the pie, providing the filling's flavour and texture.
Anchovies
Add a savoury, salty depth that seasons the shrimp filling.
Butter
Greases the dish and adds richness to the filling.
Sharp white wine
Adds acidity and moisture to the shrimp layer as it bakes.
Pastry
Encloses the filling and forms a crisp, browned crust when baked.

The step that matters

Bake until done. Shrimp cook quickly and turn tough and rubbery if overbaked, so watch them closely and remove the pie once the pastry is golden and the filling is hot.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shrimp, clove, butter, white wine):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shrimp, clove, butter, white wine. 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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