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Sauce

Shrimp Sauce

A sauce made with shrimps, butter, anchovy essence, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and anchovy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Shrimp Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a stewpan, combine the shrimps and butter sauce.

  2. Add a few drops of anchovy essence and heat until very hot.

  3. Squeeze in a little lemon juice and serve.

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. Sauce + anchovytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Shrimp + anchovytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together440 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

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

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

  4. Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Shrimps
Provide the main flavour and texture of the sauce.
Butter sauce
Carries the shrimps and adds richness and moisture to the sauce.
Anchovy essence
Adds a salty, savoury depth to the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and shrimp flavour.

The step that matters

Heat until very hot. Heating the shrimps in the butter sauce warms them through and cooks them. Overheating can toughen shrimp and cause the butter sauce to separate, so heat them just until hot.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shrimp, butter, sauce, anchovy):

  1. Avocadofits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Coconutfits less well
  4. Limefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against shrimp, butter, sauce, anchovy. 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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