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Shrimp Toast

Shrimp toast is a fried bread topped with shrimp paste and egg mixture, garnished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Shrimp Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the toast

  1. Cut out 8 or 10 rounds of bread.

  2. Fry the bread in hot fat until golden brown, then drain on paper.

Make the toppings

  1. Mix the shrimp paste, yolks of hard-boiled eggs, and butter until smooth.

  2. Rub the egg whites through a sieve.

  3. Chop the parsley very finely.

Decorate and serve

  1. Use a piping bag to decorate the edge of the toast with the shrimp mixture.

  2. Fill the center with egg white and add a little chopped parsley.

  3. Serve cold on fancy paper garnished with 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Fried bread
Provides a crisp, golden base that holds the toppings.
Butter
Adds richness and smooth texture to the shrimp mixture.
Shrimp paste
Gives the savoury, briny flavour that carries the toast.
Hard-boiled eggs
Yolks blend into a creamy filling; sieved whites add a delicate garnish.

The step that matters

Frying the bread until golden brown. Frying in hot fat quickly sets and browns the surface, creating a crisp base that resists sogging under the moist topping. Too little heat leaves it greasy and soft.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Capersfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Garlicfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, shrimp, egg. 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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