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To Stew Pawns, Shrimps, or Craw-fish

A stew of shrimp or crawfish in wine, mace, nutmeg, and butter, served over toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

To Stew Pawns, Shrimps, or Craw-fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Remove the tails from the shrimp or crawfish and set aside.

  2. Bruise the bodies and place them in a saucepan with the white wine and mace.

  3. Stew for 15 minutes, then stir and strain the mixture.

  4. Wash the saucepan, then return the strained liquid and tails to it.

Finish and serve

  1. Add grated nutmeg, salt, and the butter rolled in flour; shake to combine.

  2. Cut the bread into thin rounds and toast until brown on both sides.

  3. Arrange the toast in the bottom of a dish and pour the fish and sauce over it.

  4. Garnish with the largest claws if using crawfish or prawns, and serve hot.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. White wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Flour-coated butter melts into the liquid, thickening it and giving the sauce richness.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that build the flavour of the shellfish stock.
Shrimp or crawfish bodies
Simmered in liquid, they release their shellfish flavour into the stock.

The step that matters

Adding the flour-rolled butter. Shaking the butter into the hot liquid without stirring can leave lumps of flour. Shaking or whisking it evenly distributes the flour so the butter thickens the sauce smoothly.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shrimp, white wine, nutmeg, butter, flour, bread, vinegar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against shrimp, white wine, nutmeg, butter, flour, bread, vinegar. 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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