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Salad

Shrimp Salad

A salad of pickled shrimp mixed with mayonnaise, cucumber, and lettuce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Cucumber and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,409 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Shrimp Salad

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Stir the mayonnaise sauce into the pickled shrimps.

  2. Place the mixture in a salad bowl or dish.

  3. Garnish with sliced cucumber and shredded lettuce.

  4. Serve immediately.

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. Cucumber + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,409 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Shrimp + saucetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,423 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Shrimp + lettucetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together430 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Shrimp + cucumbertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together386 recipes

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

  5. Sauce + lettucetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Picked shrimps
Provide the main protein and bulk of the salad.
Mayonnaise sauce
Adds fat and creaminess that bind the shrimp and add moisture.

Swap the cucumber

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Welsh onionfits about as well
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shrimp, sauce, lettuce. 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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