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Shrimp Pie, Excellent

A baked pie of seasoned shrimp topped with thin pastry and white wine.

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, Excellent

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. If the shrimp are very salty, season them with only mace and a clove or two.

  2. Mince the anchovies and mix them with the spices, then season the shrimp.

  3. Grease the bottom of a baking dish with butter.

Assemble and bake

  1. Layer the seasoned shrimp in the dish and pour the white wine over them.

  2. Cover with a light and thin pastry.

  3. Bake until the pastry is golden and the filling is heated through.

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 filling and provide the savoury body of the pie.
Anchovies
Add salty, savoury depth that blends into the shrimp filling.
Sharp white wine
Adds acidity that brightens the rich shrimp flavour.
Pastry
Encloses the filling and browns in the oven to form a golden crust.

The step that matters

Baking until the pastry is golden and the filling is heated through. Shrimp cook quickly and turn tough if overbaked, while the pastry needs enough heat to set and brown. Checking both signs together helps balance a tender filling with a properly cooked crust.

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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