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Canapees of Shrimps

Canapés of picked shrimps mixed with butter and cream, piled on fried bread and garnished with watercress and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Canapees of Shrimps

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Pound the shrimps and butter together until well combined.

  2. Rub the mixture through a wire sieve.

  3. Season with lemon juice and cayenne pepper, then add the whipped cream.

Assemble and serve

  1. Pile the shrimp mixture onto the fried bread pieces.

  2. Top each with a sprig of watercress and garnish with additional picked shrimps and chopped parsley.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Watercress + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together469 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  4. Lemon + watercresstop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together579 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Picked shrimps
Provide the main flavour and the bulk of the filling.
Butter
Binds the pounded shrimps into a smooth, spreadable paste.
Whipped cream
Lightens the filling and adds a soft, creamy texture.
Fried bread
Gives a crisp base that holds the topping.

The step that matters

Rubbing the mixture through a wire sieve. Pounding alone leaves fibrous pieces and lumps. Pressing the mixture through a sieve breaks these down, giving the fine, smooth texture the filling needs once cream is added.

“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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