Name: Shrimp or Prawn Sauce
Ingredients: 1 tin prawns or shrimps; 1 pint melted butter; 1 teaspoon anchovy sauce; Cayenne pepper to taste

Why it works: Anchovy and sauce 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 or Prawn Sauce

Ingredients

1 tin prawns or shrimps
1 pint melted butter
1 teaspoon anchovy sauce
Cayenne pepper to taste

Directions

Melt the butter until smooth.
Add the prawns or shrimps, anchovy sauce, and cayenne pepper.
Heat until hot 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.

Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,057 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Shrimp + anchovytop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together440 recipes

Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).
Shrimp + buttertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,931 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,697 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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

Prawns or shrimps: Provide the main shellfish flavor and tender bite that the sauce is built around.
Melted butter: Forms the rich fat base that carries the flavor and gives the sauce a smooth, silky body.
Anchovy sauce: Adds a salty, savory depth that enriches the seafood flavor.

“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.