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Prawns or Shrimps, Potted

Prawns or shrimp are boiled, pounded with butter and seasonings, sieved, pressed into small pots, covered with clarified butter, and cooled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Shrimp and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,931 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

Prawns or Shrimps, Potted

Ingredients

Directions

Cook and shell

  1. Boil the prawns or shrimp for 8 minutes until perfectly cooked.

  2. Shell the prawns or shrimp and slightly divide them.

Make the paste

  1. Pound the prawns or shrimp in a mortar with the butter and seasonings until a paste forms.

  2. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve.

Pot and seal

  1. Press the mixture into small pots and cover with clarified butter.

  2. Once cooled, tie down the pots closely.

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. Shrimp + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,931 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Butter + macetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,405 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Shrimp + peppertop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,692 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylethanol (rose, floral).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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 shrimp
Provides the main body and flavour of the dish once pounded into a paste.
Butter
Binds the pounded shellfish into a smooth spreadable paste and adds richness.
Mace or nutmeg
Adds a warm, aromatic spice note that complements the shellfish and butter.

The step that matters

Pound and sieve the paste. Pounding the shellfish with butter while it is still warm and then pressing it through a fine sieve breaks up fibres and makes a smooth, even texture. Lumps left behind give a grainy spread.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shrimp, butter, pepper. 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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