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Shrimp Pie

A pie filled with seasoned shrimp, anchovies, mace, cloves, and white wine, topped with light pastry dough.

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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

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

  2. Mince the anchovies and mix them with the spices.

  3. Season the shrimps with the anchovy mixture.

Assemble and bake

  1. Grease the bottom of a pie dish with butter.

  2. Layer the seasoned shrimps in the dish and pour the white wine over them.

  3. Cover with a light and thin pastry dough.

  4. Bake until golden brown.

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 filling and supply its flavour.
Anchovies
Add savoury depth, seasoning the shrimps with a salty, umami note.
Sharp white wine
Adds acidity and moisture to the filling as it bakes.
Light pastry dough
Forms a thin top crust that seals in the filling and browns in the oven.

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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