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Shrimp Cutlets

Shrimp cutlets are fried shrimp patties coated with breadcrumbs, garnished with macaroni and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Shrimp Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a pan, then add the flour and cook for 1 minute.

  2. Stir in the fish stock, milk, cream, chopped shrimps, salt, pepper, cayenne, and ground mace. Mix well.

  3. Pour the mixture onto a plate and let it cool completely.

Shape and coat

  1. Once cooled, divide into 8 pieces and shape into cutlets.

  2. Dip each cutlet in the whipped egg, then coat with breadcrumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the cutlets in hot fat until golden brown.

  2. Garnish each cutlet with a small piece of macaroni and serve with fried parsley in the center of the dish.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Butter + fishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Enriches the roux and adds richness to the mixture.
Flour
Thickens the butter and liquids into a binding base that holds the cutlets together.
Shrimps
Provide the main flavour and texture of the cutlets.
Egg
Binds the coating so the breadcrumbs adhere to the cutlets.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, golden outer crust when fried.
Milk and cream
Add moisture and richness, softening the starch-thickened base.

The step that matters

Cooling the mixture completely before shaping. The flour-thickened base must set firm; if it is still warm or soft, the cutlets will slump and break apart during coating and frying.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, fish, milk, cream, shrimp, pepper):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, fish, milk, cream, shrimp, 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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