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Shrimp-toast a LA Reuse

Shrimp Toast à la Reuse is a shrimp topping served on toast with a veal gravy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Shrimp-toast a LA Reuse

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Mix veal gravy with the other ingredients, add shrimps, and stir in lemon juice.

Prepare the toast

  1. Soak the crust in cold cream or buttered toast, then moisten with boiling cream.

Cook and finish

  1. In a saucepan, melt butter, add flour, mace, cayenne, and nutmeg; cook for 5 to 7 minutes.

  2. Add cream and shrimps; cook for 1 minute.

  3. Finish with a squeeze of lemon juice.

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 + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Shrimps
Supply the main filling, and their firm texture holds up within the sauce.
Butter
Provides fat for richness and a smooth base for the flour.
Flour
Thickens the melted butter so the sauce binds together.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the sauce into a creamy mixture.
Veal gravy
Adds savory, meaty depth to the mixture.

The step that matters

Add cream and shrimps; cook for 1 minute. Shrimp cook very quickly, and extra heat makes their proteins contract, turning them rubbery. Adding them last and cooking only briefly keeps them tender.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, flour, pepper, nutmeg, cream, shrimp. 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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