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Shrimp Salad

A salad of sliced cooked shrimp served on lettuce with French or mayonnaise dressing, capers, and olives.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 372 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Shrimp Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the shrimp

  1. Thinly slice the cooked shrimp tails and place them in a bowl.

  2. Add French dressing and mix well.

Serve

  1. Serve on heart leaves of lettuce, drizzling with more dressing.

  2. Alternatively, place shrimp on lettuce leaves and pour over mayonnaise dressing, adding capers and olives.

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. Lettuce + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together372 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Capers + olivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,688 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Lettuce + olivetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,580 recipes

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

  4. Shrimp + olivetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,966 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

  5. Shrimp + caperstop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together179 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked shrimp tails
Provide the main protein and bulk of the salad.
French dressing
Adds moisture and tangy, sweet flavor that coats the shrimp.
Mayonnaise dressing
Adds richness and fat for a creamy, smooth coating.
Heart leaves of lettuce
Provide a crisp, cool base that holds the shrimp.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shrimp, capers, olive):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Welsh onionfits about as well
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shrimp, capers, olive. 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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